Journal of Biomedical Physics & Engineering
Volume:8 Issue: 1, Jan-Feb 2018

Miranda-Filho et al. in their recently published paper entitled “Cancers of the brain and CNS: global patterns and trends in incidence” provided a global status report of the geographic and temporal variations in the incidence of brain and CNS cancers in different countries across continents worldwide. While the authors confirm the role of genetic risk factors and ionizing radiation exposures, they claimed that no firm conclusion could be drawn about the role of exposure to non-ionizing radiation. The paper authored by Miranda-Filho et al. not only addresses a challenging issue, it can be considered as a good contribution in the field of brain and CNS cancers. However, our correspondence addresses a basic shortcoming of this paper about the role of electromagnetic fields and cancers and provides evidence showing that exposure to radiofrequency electromagnetic fields (RF-EMFs), at least at high levels and long durations, can increases the risk of cancer.

One of the main causes of induction of secondary cancer in radiation therapy is neutron contamination received by patients during treatment.
In the present study the impact of wedge and block on neutron contamination production is investigated. The evaluations are conducted for a 15 MV Siemens Primus linear accelerator.
Simulations were performed using MCNPX Monte Carlo code. 30˚, 45˚ and 60˚ wedges and a cerrobend block with dimensions of 1.5 × 1.5 × 7 cm3 were simulated. The investigation were performed in the 10 × 10 cm2 field size at source to surface distance of 100 cm for depth of 0.5, 2, 3 and 4 cm in a water phantom. Neutron dose was calculated using F4 tally with flux to dose conversion factors and F6 tally.
Results showed that the presence of wedge increases the neutron contamination when the wedge factor was considered. In addition, 45˚ wedge produced the most amount of neutron contamination. If the block is in the center of the field, the cerrobend block caused less neutron contamination than the open field due to absorption of neutrons and photon attenuation. The results showed that neutron contamination is less in steeper depths. The results for two tallies showed practically equivalent results.
Wedge causes neutron contamination hence should be considered in therapeutic protocols in which wedge is used. In terms of clinical aspects, the results of this study show that superficial tissues such as skin will tolerate more neutron contamination than the deep tissues.

To enhance the dose to tumor, the use of high atomic number elements has been proposed.
The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of gold nanoparticle distribution on dose enhancement in tumor when the tumor is irradiated by typical monoenergetic X-ray beams by considering homogeneous and inhomogeneous distributions of gold nanoparticles (GNPs) in the tumor.
MCNP-4C Monte Carlo code was utilized for the simulation of a source, a phantom containing tumor and gold nanoparticles with concentrations of 10, 30 and 70 mg Au/g tumor. A 15 cm×15 cm×15 cm cubic water phantom was irradiated with a small planar source with four monoenergetic X-ray beams of 35, 55, 75 and 95 keV energy. Furthermore, tumor depths of 2.5 cm, 4.5 cm and 6.5 cm with homogeneous and inhomogeneous distributions of nanoparticles were studied. Each concentration, photon energy, tumor depth and type of distribution was evaluated in a separate simulation.
Results have shown that dose enhancement factor (DEF) in tumor increases approximately linearly with the concentration of gold nanoparticles. While DEF has fluctuations with photon energy, 55 keV photons have the highest DEF values compared to other energies. While DEF has relatively the same values with tumor located at various depths, inhomogeneous distribution of GNP has shown different results compared with the homogeneous model. Dose enhancement can be expected with relatively deep seated tumors in radiotherapy with low energy X-rays. Inhomogeneous model is recommended for the purpose of dose enhancement study because it mimics the real distribution of GNPs in tumor.

Radiation damage is to a large extent caused by overproduction of reactive oxygen species (ROS). Radioprotectors are agents or substances that reduce the effects of radiation in healthy normal tissues while maintaining the sensitivity to radiation damage in tumor cells.
Radioprotectors are agents or substances that reduce the effects of radiation in healthy normal tissues while maintaining the sensitivity to radiation damage in tumor cells
Cimetidine was found more effective when used in vivo; this effect might be due to the augmentation of the presence of Sulphur atom in the compound which is ýimportant for their scavenging activity.
Recently, a new herbal-based medicine with immunomodulatory capacities, Setarud (IMOD), was introduced as an additional therapy in various inflammatory diseases and HIV infection.
IMOD is a mixture of herbal extracts enriched with selenium. Selenium confers protection by inducing or activating cellular free-radical scavenging systems and by enhancing peroxide breakdown. This article suggests that nontoxic amount of IMOD and cimetidine have radioprotective properties and could reduce cytotoxic effects of radiation.

The use of miniature X-ray source in electronic brachytherapy is on the rise so there is an urgent need to acquire more knowledge on X-ray spectrum production and distribution by a dose. The aim of this research was to investigate the influence of target thickness and geometry at the source of miniature X-ray tube on tube output.
Five sources were simulated based on problems each with a specific geometric structure and conditions using MCNPX code. Tallies proportional to the output were used to calculate the results for the influence of source geometry on output.
The results of this work include the size of the optimal thickness of 5 miniature sources, energy spectrum of the sources per 50 kev and also the axial and transverse dose of simulated sources were calculated based on these thicknesses. The miniature source geometric was affected on the output x-ray tube.
The result of this study demonstrates that hemispherical-conical, hemispherical and truncated-conical miniature sources were determined as the most suitable tools.

One of the main problems of dedicated IORT accelerators is to determine dosimetric characteristics of the electron beams. Monte Carlo simulation of IORT accelerator head and produced beam will be useful to improve the accuracy of beam dosimetry.
Liac accelerator head was modeled using the BEAMnrcMonte Carlo simulation system. Phase-space files were generated at the bottom of the applicators. These phase-space files were used as an input source in DOSXYZnrc and BEAMDP codes for dose calculation and analysis of the characteristic of the electron beams in all applicators and energies.
The results of Monte Carlo calculations are in very close agreement with the measurements. There is a decrease in the peak of the initial spectrum when electrons come from the end of accelerator wave guide to the end of applicator. By decreasing the applicator diameter, the mean energy of electron beam decreased. Using applicators and increasing their size, X-ray contamination will increase. The percentage of X-ray contamination increases by applicator diameter. This is related to the increase of the mean energy of electron beams.
Application of PMMA collimator leads to, although well below accepted level, the production of bremsstrahlung. The results of this study showed that special design of LIAC head accompanying by PMMA collimator system cause to produce an electron beam with an individual dosimetric characteristic making it a useful tool for intraoperative radiotherapy purposes.

One of the challenges of PET/MRI combined systems is to derive an attenuation map to correct the PET image. For that, the pseudo-CT image could be used to correct the attenuation. Until now, most existing scientific researches construct this pseudo-CT image using the registration techniques. However, these techniques suffer from the local minima of the non-rigid deformation energy function which leads to unsatisfactory results.
We propose in this paper a new approach for the generation of a pseudo-CT image from an MR image.
This approach is based on a dense stereo matching concept, for that, we encode each pixel according to a shape related coordinates method, and we apply a local texture descriptor to put into correspondence pixels between MRI patient and MRI atlas images. The proposed approach was tested on a real MRI data, and in order to show the effectiveness of the proposed local descriptor, it has been compared to three other local descriptors: SIFT, SURF and DAISY. Also it was compared to registration method.
The calculation of structural similarity (SSIM) index and DICE coefficients, between the pseudo-CT image and the corresponding real CT image show that the proposed stereo matching approach outperforms a registration one.
The use of dense matching with atlas promises good results in the creation of pseudo-CT. The proposed approach can be recommended as an alternative to registration techniques.

Radiotherapy with large mantle field is an effective technique in increasing the risk of secondary cancers among HL (Hodgkin Lymphoma) patients; therefore, it is essential to choose an effective treatment field including the least medical conditions in radiotherapy.
The present study aimed to plan separate fields for neck and mediastinum using various energies, to compare dose distribution with MLC and to block field formation.
In this study, 3D conformal treatments, Siemens Oncor accelerator equipped with multi-leaf collimator (MLC) were performed to create anterior-posterior fields. CT-scan data of 18 female patients with neck and mediastinal involvement was imported in TIGRT treatment planning system, and then treatment plans were introduced.
Results and Using treatment plan 1, photon 6 MV in neck weighting 1 from interior, 0.5 from posterior, photon 18MV in mediastinum weighting 1 from interior and 0.5 from posterior, it was shown that regarding the common treatment plan used with photon 6 MV, mean dose delivered to breast, lung, esophagus and larynx reduced 6, 7, 41 and 10 percent, respectively and uniformity index improved by 10 percent. Using block compared to MLC in all treatment plans offered improved average dose in all organs under study. To protect breast and lung while using MLC and block in the first treatment plan seemed to be more appropriate; however, using blocks in comparison to MLC increased delivered mean dose in all organs under study. Using separate fields with Pb blocks, though, showed smaller increase.

In spite of the increasing degree of automation in industry, manual material handling (MMH) is still performed in many occupational settings. The aim of the current study was to determine the maximum acceptable weight of lift using psychophysical and electromyography indices.
This experimental study was conducted among 15 male students recruited from Tehran University of Medical Sciences. Each participant performed 18 different lifting tasks which involved three lifting frequencies, three lifting heights and two box sizes. Each set of experiments was conducted during the 20 min work period using free-style lifting technique and subjective as well as objective assessment methodologies. SPSS version 18 software was used for descriptive and analytical analyses by Friedman, Wilcoxon and Spearman correlation techniques.
The results demonstrated that muscle activity increased with increasing frequency, height of lift and box size (P Based on the results of this study, it was concluded if muscle activity is more than 70% of MVC, the values of Snook tables should be revisited. Furthermore, the biomechanical perspective should receive special attention in determining the standards for MMH.

Temporomandibular joint disorder (TMD) might be manifested as structural changes in bone through modification, adaptation or direct destruction. We propose to use Local Binary Pattern (LBP) characteristics and histogram-oriented gradients on the recorded images as a diagnostic tool in TMD assessment.
Material and CBCT images of 66 patients (132 joints) with TMD and 66 normal cases (132 joints) were collected and 2 coronal cut prepared from each condyle, although images were limited to head of mandibular condyle. In order to extract features of images, first we use LBP and then histogram of oriented gradients. To reduce dimensionality, the linear algebra Singular Value Decomposition (SVD) is applied to the feature vectors matrix of all images. For evaluation, we used K nearest neighbor (K-NN), Support Vector Machine, Naïve Bayesian and Random Forest classifiers. We used Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) to evaluate the hypothesis.
K nearest neighbor classifier achieves a very good accuracy (0.9242), moreover, it has desirable sensitivity (0.9470) and specificity (0.9015) results, when other classifiers have lower accuracy, sensitivity and specificity.
We proposed a fully automatic approach to detect TMD using image processing techniques based on local binary patterns and feature extraction. K-NN has been the best classifier for our experiments in detecting patients from healthy individuals, by 92.42% accuracy, 94.70% sensitivity and 90.15% specificity. The proposed method can help automatically diagnose TMD at its initial stages.

The major limitation in human vision is refractive error. Auxiliary equipment and methods for these people are not always available. In addition, limited range of accommodation in adult people when switching from a far point to a near point is not simply possible. In this paper, we are looking for solutions to use the facilities of digital image processing and displaying to improve visual acuity when using digital display devices. We quantitatively investigate the effect of edge enhancement on improving the visual acuity at different levels of contrast. We can improve visual acuity for people such as emmetropia, myopia and hyperopia when they utilize display devices.
According to the objective of this research, 24 visual acuity optical charts were designed using MATLAB software, based on logMAR standard. The charts have different levels of contrast with enhanced edges of optotypes at two brightness levels: 0 and 255. The proposed patterns were tested on 20 human subjects. The obtained results for each chart were analyzed in SPSS software.
The results show that at all contrast levels, edge enhancement improves visual acuity. The degree of improvement where the edges have brightness level of 0 is higher than where the edges have brightness level of 255.
Based on the results, enhancing the edges of optotypes in the background image improves visual acuity by about 16.1% on logMAR scale.

Dynamic contrast enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (DCE-MRI) provides functional information on the microcirculation in tissues by analyzing the enhancement kinetics which can be used as biomarkers for prostate lesions detection and characterization.
The purpose of this study is to investigate spatiotemporal patterns of tumors by extracting semi-quantitative as well as wavelet-based features, both extracted from pixel-based time-signal intensity curves to segment prostate lesions on prostate DCE-MRI.
Quantitative dynamic contrast-enhanced MRI data were acquired on 22 patients. Optimal features selected by forward selection are used for the segmentation of prostate lesions by applying fuzzy c-means (FCM) clustering. The images were reviewed by an expert radiologist and manual segmentation performed as the ground truth.
Empirical results indicate that fuzzy c-mean classifier can achieve better results in terms of sensitivity, specificity when semi-quantitative features were considered versus wavelet kinetic features for lesion segmentation (Sensitivity of 87.58% and 75.62%, respectively) and (Specificity of 89.85% and 68.89 %, respectively).
The proposed segmentation algorithm in this work can potentially be implemented for automatic prostate lesion detection in a computer aided diagnosis scheme and combined with morphologic features to increase diagnostic credibility.

With advances in medical imaging systems, digital dermoscopy has become one of the major imaging modalities in the analysis of skin lesions. Thus, automated segmentation or border detection has a great impact on the subsequent steps of skin cancer computer-aided diagnosis using demoscopy images. Since dermoscopy images suffer from artifacts such as shading and hair, there is a need for automated and robust artifact attenuation removal and lesion border detection.
A method for segmentation of dermoscopy images is proposed based on active contour. To this end, at first, a simple method for hair pixels is restored and a new scheme for shading detection is proposed. Then, particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm is applied to select the best coefficients for converting RGB to gray level. The obtained gray level image is then used as input for multi Otsu method which provides initial contour for border detection using active contour. Finally, Chan and Vese active contour is used for final lesion border detection.
The method is tested on a total of 145 dermoscopic images: 79 cases with benign lesion and 75 cases with melanoma lesion. Mean accuracy, sensitivity and specificity were obtained 94%, 78.5% and 99%, respectively.
Results reveal that the proposed method segments the lesion from dermoscopy images accurately.

Modern challenges of food science require a new understanding of the determinants of food quality and safety. Application of advanced imaging modalities such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has seen impressive successes and fast growth over the past decade. Since MRI does not have any harmful ionizing radiation, it can be considered as a magnificent tool for the quality control of food products. MRI allows the structure of foods to be imaged noninvasively and nondestructively. Magnetic resonance images can present information about several processes and material properties in foods. This review will provide an overview of the most prominent applications of MRI in food research.

A large body of evidence now indicates that the amount of mercury released from dental amalgam fillings can be significantly accelerated by exposure to radiofrequency electromagnetic fields (RF-EMFs) such as common mobile phones and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Studies performed on the increased microleakage of dental amalgam restorations after exposure to RF-EMFs have further supported these findings. Although the accelerated microleakage induced by RF-EMFs is clinically significant, the entire mechanisms of this phenomenon are not clearly understood. In this paper, we introduce “Triple M” effect, a new evidence-based theory which can explain the accelerated microleakage of dental amalgam fillings after exposure to different sources of electromagnetic radiation. Based on this theory, there are saliva-filled tiny spaces between amalgam and the tooth. Exposure of the oral cavity to RF-EMFs increases the energy of these small amounts of saliva. Due to the small mass of saliva in these tiny spaces, a small amount of energy will be required for heating. Moreover, reflection of the radiofrequency radiation on the inner walls of the tiny spaces causes interference which in turn produces some “hot spots” in these spaces. Finally, formation of gas bubbles in response to increased temperature and very rapid expansion of these bubbles will accelerate the microleakage of amalgam. Experiments that confirm the validity of this theory are discussed.

As regards the significant role of stethoscopes in the diagnosis of congenital and adventitious heart diseases and prevention of irreparable complications of these diseases, the quality of hearing sound of these stethoscopes by a physician has a significant impact on the disease diagnosis. This device plays an important role in the early diagnosis of congenital heart and respiratory diseases and provides this feasibility since birth. Also, the importance of this device performance in the diagnosis of heart, cardiovascular and respiratory diseases at different age periods is not a secret. This new invented device, in comparison to a variety of available stethoscopes in the field of diagnosis, is capable of hearing the sound of a very high quality and cancelling the noise of sound that sometimes leads to wrong diagnosis or misdiagnosis. This new invented stethoscope is approved by cardiologists, lung and Infectious disease specialists as well as being registered under No. 78382 in Patent Islamic Republic of Iran.