Development of a 3D cavity dosimeter and image analysis software for in-body invivo dose measurement of organs at risk to make radiotherapy safer for patients and more efficient for clinicians

目前估计，每2个人中就有1人会患上癌症，其中约40%将接受放射治疗(ancerresearuk.org)。放射治疗涉及使用电离辐射治疗肿瘤，几十年来一直是癌症治疗的关键因素。然而，10-25%的放射治疗患者经常因治疗而受损或失败，因为目前无法测量体内实际接收的辐射并将其与计划剂量进行比较，我们的愿景是提供医疗设备来快速、廉价和简单地测量肿瘤及周围器官的辐射，以便更安全有效地实施放射治疗。TRUEinvivo开发了一种设备，它使用1毫米的玻璃珠串来测量1毫米以内的实际剂量，准确度为±3%。这种名为DoseMapper的设备和相关的自动阅读器仍在开发中，因此还没有提供给患者，但应该在2019年底之前可以使用。这个项目的目标和主要创新是开发一个3D版本的DoseMapper，仍然使用同样的玻璃TLD，用弹性线系在一起，但包裹在气球或插件上。其设想可应用于测量可接近的肿瘤(例如，头颈部癌症的口腔)或危险器官(例如，在治疗前列腺癌时测量直肠壁的剂量)的接收剂量。一旦在一次会议中测量了剂量水平，临床医生就有了调整剂量的信息，将对患者的辐射暴露和对健康组织的损害降至最低。

It is currently estimated that 1 in 2 people will have cancer and of these around 40% will receive radiotherapy treatment (cancerresearchuk.org). Radiotherapy involves using ionising radiation to treat tumours and has been a key element of cancer treatment for decades. However 10-25% of radiotherapy patients are damaged or failed by their treatment often because currently there is no way to measure the actual radiation received in-body and compare it to the planned dose, Our vision is to provide medical devices to measure the radiation at the tumour - and surrounding organs - quickly, cheaply and simply so that radiotherapy can be applied more safely and effectively.TRUEinvivo has developed a device that uses strings of micro (1mm) glass beads to measure the actual dose within 1mm and ±3% accuracy. This device named DoseMapper, and the associated automated reader, is still in development and so not yet available for patients but should be available by the end of 2019\.The aim of this project, and the major innovation, is to develop a 3D version of DoseMapper, still using the same glass TLDs strung on a stretchy thread but wrapped around a balloon or insert. Its envisaged this could find application for measuring received dose at an accessible tumour (e.g. mouth cavity for head and neck cancers) or organs at risk (e.g. measuring the dose at the rectal wall when treating prostate cancer). Once the dose levels have been measured in one session, the clinician has the information to adjust the dose, minimising radiation exposure to the patient and damage to healthy tissue.