A group of Indian scientists has developed a novel and cheap 3D robotic motion phantom which can reproduce the lung motion of a human during breathing.
Context
A group of Indian scientists has developed a novel and cheap 3D robotic motion phantom which can reproduce the lung motion of a human during breathing.
About the Novel 3D Robotic Motion Phantom
- The programmable robotic motion is the platform for quality assurance of respiratory motion management techniques in radiation therapy.
- It can also be helpful to check if the radiation is being correctly focused on a moving target.
- The equipment is aligned with the ‘Make in India’ Initiative.
- It is an indigenously built platform and is cost-effective.
How does it work?
- The phantom is placed inside a CT scanner on the bed in place of the human, and it emulates human lung motion as it is irradiated during therapy.
- As the phantom emulates the lung movement, a moving window is used to focus the radiation from the radiation machine on the moving tumor.
- Detectors that are placed in the phantom help to detect whether the radiation is localized on the tumor.
- During irradiation, high-quality images of advanced 4D radiation therapy treatments are obtained with minimum exposure of the patients and workers.
- The major part of the phantom is a dynamic platform that can mimic 3D tumor motion by using three independent stepper-motor systems.
Why the equipment was being developed?
- Breathing motion causesa hurdle for delivering focused radiation dose to the cancer tumor, which is attached to the upper abdomen and thoracic regions.
- The motion during breathing exposes an area that is larger than the tumor to radiation during cancer treatment.
- Focused radiation could be customized by simulating the lung movement of the patient and then orienting the delivery of the radiation so that it could be effective with minimal dosage.
- Before this is done on a human, the effectiveness of such a treatment is needed to be checked on a robotic phantom.
Radiation treatment of cancer
- Radiotherapy is a cancer treatment that uses high doses of radiation to kill cancer cells and shrink tumors.
- Under radiation therapy cancer cells are killed or their growth is slowed down by damaging their DNA.
- The cancer cells whose DNA is damaged beyond repair limit stop dividing or die.
- Radiation therapy mostly uses X-rays, but protons or other types of energy can also be used.
|
