m. saeb

This research was conducted to compare dosiomics features extracted from planning target volume (PTV) between the two three-dimensional conformal radiation therapy (3D-CRT) and helical tomotherapy (HT) techniques in nasopharyngeal cancer.

3D-CRT plans were designed for ten nasopharyngeal patients previously treated with HT. For both treatment techniques, the total prescription dose was 70 Gray in 33 fractions. At first, the dosimetric parameters, including mean dose, conformity index (CI), and homogeneity index (HI), were calculated for two techniques. Then, using 3D-Slicer software, dosiomics features were extracted from the dose matrix of PTV.

In comparing the plans regarding dosimetric parameters, HT plans had a lower mean dose and higher CI (p-value <0.01 and <0.001, respectively). HI had no statistically difference between the two groups (p>0.9). Among 93 features extracted from PTV70, only 40 features including eight features from the first-order group, ten features from the gray-level co-occurrence matrix group (GLCM), seven features from the gray-level dependence matrix group (GLDM), ten features from the gray-level run-length matrix group (GLRLM), four features from the gray-level size-zone matrix group (GLSZM), and one feature from the neighboring gray-tone difference matrix group (NGTDM) were found to be significantly different between the two groups.

According to the results, the dosiomics features can distinguish the differences between dose distributions in different studied plans. However, more studies should be done in selecting the most suitable features for use in evaluating the quality of the treatment plans.

It has been found that the bystander effect plays a key role in the survival of cells exposed to highly non-uniform radiation beams. However, the linear-quadratic (LQ) model cannot predict these effects well. The present study aimed to explore the potential impact of the radiation-induced signaling effects on treatment plans for spatially fractionated radiation therapy (SFRT) using a numerical radiobiological model. 

 Two tomotherapy-based SFRT plans were created using commercially available software in this work. The tumor response to these plans was modeled by both the conventional LQ model and a bystander model incorporating the indirect effect of radiation. We have investigated how dose-volume histograms (DVHs), dose distribution, equivalent uniform dose (EUD), and mean dose change with radiation-induced signaling effects. 

 When the intercellular signaling effects are included in the predictive survival model, the cell-killing within the low-dose regions of GRID fields increases. This leads to an increase in the EUD and means dose. These effects are more striking for the LATTICE radiotherapy plan, which contains high dose gradients in three dimensions. 

 Incorporating radiation-induced signals in tumor cells response to SFRT significantly deviates from the LQ model predictions. Therefore, it is recommended to use the radiobiological models which take both the signaling and radiation effects into account to predict survival in highly modulated radiation beams, especially in LATTICE radiotherapy.

In order to study the effects of turpentine oil on the concentration of lipids and lipoproteins of rabbit ( as an animal model for human studies )35 healthy female rabbits were chosen and then randomly allocated into 13 groups. Different percents of turpentine oil and other oil compounds like vegetable oil, cholesterol and animal oil were given to each group ( 5 rabbits ) separately or in combination.

Blood serum lipid and lipoprotein levels were analysed using routine laboratory methods.

According to the results, treatment with 10% and 20% turpentine oil had a significant decreasing effect on triglyceride, cholesterol, total lipid, VLDL- cholesterol and LDL- cholesterol ( P<0.05 ) and a significant increasing effect on HDL- cholesterol (P<0.05). On occasions which rabbits were fed a combination of different oils such as turpentine oil, animal oil and vegetable oil or cholesterol, varying results were obtained which showed significant differences with the control group in some instances and in some other occasions had no significant difference (P>0.05).

Conclusively, results showed that treatment with turpentine oil has a significant decreasing effect on the levels of serum lipids and lipoproteins (VLDL-cholesterol and LDL- cholesterol ).