Medical Physics - Science topic

Draft of 11 /22 /23. This paper proposes a unified definition of energy, integrating concepts from quantum field theory (QFT), quantum mechanics, and relativistic mechanics. Addressing the varied understanding of energy in these fields, it examines energy as quantum field excitations in QFT, quantized states in quantum mechanics, and its relation t...

LaBr3:Ce crystals have good scintillation properties for X-ray spectroscopy. Initially, they were introduced for radiation imaging in medical physics with either a photomultiplier or SiPM readout, and they found extensive applications in homeland security and gamma-ray astronomy. We used 1″ round LaBr3:Ce crystals to realize compact detectors with...

Background: The international commission on radiation protection (ICRP) publican 135 recommends that Diagnostic Reference Levels (DRLs) should be tied to defined technical and patient parameters for the imaging task. Whereas for computed tomography (CT) examinations, DRLs are defined in terms of two established technical parameters namely, Volume-b...

Femoroacetabular impingement (FAI) is a recognized source of debilitating hip pain among elite athletes. Hip arthroscopy, including labral repair, and FAI lesion correction have been gaining notoriety as methods to mitigate pain and enable athletes to return to their respective sports. PURPOSE: To provide a comprehensive understanding of the clinic...

Aim: The aim of this study was to investigate the suitability of three radiochromicfilm analysis software for stereotactic radiotherapy patient-specific qualityassurance (PSQA): FilmQA Pro v5.0, SNC Patient v6.2, and eFilmQA v5.0. Methods: Film calibration was conducted for each software followed by threesets of measurements.The first set assess...

As a National Metrology Institute, the National Research Council Canada (NRC) provides confidence in measurement results, and data traceable to SI units. This paper outlines some of the ways that the NRC contributes to reducing measurement uncertainty in clinical medical physics dosimetry. These activities include, (i) the improvement of existing p...

Somatic symptoms are common and cause significant functional impairments. Cognitive Behavioral therapy has the strongest evidence in the efficacy for somatic symptom disorder among psy chosocial treatments. Meanwhile, there have been a few pharmacological studies for somatic symptom disorder. This review aims to provide the practical principles and...

Este relatório mostra o desenvolvimento de um projeto realizado pela ABFM (Associação Brasileira de Física Médica) para auxiliar em uma solicitação da CNEN (Comissão Nacional de Energia Nuclear) relativa ao processo de auditoria externa. O presente documento mostra como ocorreu a solicitação desta demanda, formação do grupo de estudo, desenvolvimen...

Purpose Modern digital teaching formats have become increasingly important in recent years, in part due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In January 2021, an online-based webinar series was established by the German Society for Radiation Oncology (DEGRO) and the young DEGRO (yDEGRO) working group. In the monthly 120-minute courses, selected lecturers teach...

Objective The purpose of this scoping review was to explore the top 100 most cited articles in helical tomotherapy (HT) through bibliometric analysis and visualization tools, help researchers comprehensively understand the research hotspots of HT, and provide clear and intuitive network visualization. Methods The Web of Science Core Collection and...

Breast cancer is the most frequently diagnosed neoplasm in women in Italy. There are several risk factors, but thanks to screening and increased awareness, most breast cancers are diagnosed at an early stage when surgical treatment can most often be conservative and the adopted therapy is more effective. Regular screening is essential but advanced...

Imaging biomarkers (IBs) have been proposed in medical literature that exploit images in a quantitative way, going beyond the visual assessment by an imaging physician. These IBs can be used in the diagnosis, prognosis, and response assessment of several pathologies and are very often used for patient management pathways. In this respect, IBs to be...

Radioembolization using Yttrium‐90 ( ⁹⁰ Y) microspheres is widely used to treat primary and metastatic liver tumors. The present work provides minimum practice guidelines for establishing and supporting such a program. Medical physicists play a key role in patient and staff safety during these procedures. Products currently available are identified...

Several staffing models are used to determine the required medical physics staffing, including radiotherapy technologists, of radiation oncology departments. However, since Japanese facilities tend to be smaller in scale than foreign ones, those models might not apply to Japan. Therefore, in this study, we surveyed workloads in Japan to estimate th...

Radiotherapy (RT) involves delivering X-ray beams to the tumor site to trigger DNA damage. In this approach, it is fundamental to preserve healthy cells and to confine the X-ray beam only to the malignant cells. The integration of gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) in the X-ray methodology could be considered a powerful tool to improve the efficacy of RT....

This publication constitutes the Proceedings of the 10th Panhellenic Conference on Biomedical Technology, the flagship event organised by the Hellenic Society of Biomedical Technology (ELEVIT) between 6-8 October 2023 at the Thessaloniki Concert Hall, M2, along with the Aristotle Medical Forum 2023. The conference was held under the auspices of IFM...

Objective: The gamma index (γ) has been extensively investigated in the medical physics and applied in clinical practice. However, γ has a significant limitation when used to evaluate the dose-gradient region, leading to inconveniences, particularly in stereotactic radiotherapy (SRT). This study proposes a novel evaluation method combined with γ t...

The Binaytara Foundation annual Summit on Cancer Health Disparities is one of the largest clinical and research conferences on cancer disparities in the USA. The 2023 theme was “Reframing and Addressing Barriers to Adoption of Precision Oncology”, and sessions included clinical trials, novel technologies, access to care, vulnerable populations, scr...

Objective: After three years since the first cases of COVID-19, many people suffer from post-COVID symptoms, reducing their quality of life. In this study, we aimed to evaluate the symptoms and prevalence of long COVID and its effect on the quality of life and also the effect of SARS-CoV-2 vaccine on the quality of life. Materials and Methods: Pati...

Lennon et al. 1 , through their individual participant data meta analysis of longitudinal cohort studies have found association of antihypertensive use with decreased risk of dementia. However, causality association of dementia cannot be established based on hypertension alone. Besides hypertension, there are other risk factors which are responsibl...

O Documento Técnico de Radiocirurgia Brasileiro é um projeto da Associação Brasileira de Física Médica (ABFM) idealizado pela diretoria de Radioterapia na gestão 2022/2023 em parceria com Físicos Médicos Especialistas e Médicos especialistas em Radiocirurgia.Trata-se de um documento técnico, visando o consenso dos parâmetros e requisitos mínimos pa...

Neutron flux measurement is integral to nuclear physics, with implications across nuclear engineering, medical physics, and material science. This study details neutron flux mapping in the TRIGA reactor in Vienna using the gold foil activation method. Identical gold foils were prepared, subjected to 10-minute irradiation within the reactor core, an...

Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (EDS) is a rare disorder affecting the connective tissue, resulting in joint hypermobility, elastic skin, and often chronic pain, especially in the hypermobility variant. Although opioids are commonly prescribed for pain, they can lead to opioid use disorder (OUD) and overdose. A 67-year-old female with Ehlers-Danlos syndrome...

Background and Objectives Pain treatments and their efficacy have been studied extensively. Yet surprisingly little is known about the types of treatments, and combinations of treatments, that community-dwelling adults use to manage pain, as well as how treatment types are associated with individual characteristics and national-level context. To fi...

Background Looked after children (Lac) continue to attain suboptimal health and social outcomes and have a high prevalence of mental, developmental and behavioural disorders. Limited in research is the exploration of neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs) in this vulnerable population. This review aims to compare prevalence rates of NDDs in children w...

Background: In healthcare, regulation of professions is an important tool to protect the public. Professions find themselves increasingly under scrutiny, and regulators wield considerable power over registrants. In recent years, there has been considerable public concern with regulator performance. In the literature, there is no data on the experie...

Palestra realizada no Centro de Estudos do Hospital Central do Exército no 1° Curso de Atualização em Cancerologia.

Purpose: Realizing the need for periodic surveys about global medical physics human resource, the International Organization for Medical Physics (IOMP) performed a third survey following the previous two (2015 and 2018). The objective was to collect information about the current numbers of medical physicists (MPs) in individual countries, about th...

Master Classes in Medical Physics

Globally, the cost of hard tissue repair and regeneration is in the hundreds of billions of dollars every year, and as the population ages, this demand has grown significantly. Structures made of calcium phosphate minerals, such as bone and teeth, are considered to be hard tissues. Techniques for regenerative medicine and smart biomaterial-based ti...

People with metastatic breast cancer (MBC) have diverse medical, physical, and psychosocial needs that require multidimensional care. Understanding patient preferences is crucial to tailor treatments, services, and foster patient-centered care. A scoping review was performed to summarize the current evidence on the preferences of people with MBC re...

Northwest Medical Physics Center (NMPC) is a nonprofit organization that provides clinical physics support to over 35 radiation therapy facilities concentrated in the Pacific Northwest. Although clinical service is the primary function of NMPC, the diverse array of clinical sites and physics expertise has allowed for the establishment of structured...

Breve resumo que reporta à história do surgimento da Física Médica como profissão, e as principais atribuições do físico médico em Radioterapia e em Radiologia Diagnostica.

Previous studies have demonstrated the remarkable resistance of bdelloid rotifers to ionizing radiation, making them an interesting model system for studying radiation effects on living organisms. In this study, we use simulations, instead of direct experimental exposures, to examine whether all bdel-loids are affected equally by radiation exposure...

A journal club program was initiated in a clinically focused, geographically distributed medical physics therapy residency program. This program currently supports two residents at different clinical sites, who regularly present at the new journal club. For one of the sessions, residents were assigned to present on topics related to the broad theme...

Background: There have been several proposals by researchers for the introduction of Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology due to its promising role in radiotherapy practice. However, prior to the introduction of the technology, there are certain general recommendations that must be achieved. Also, the current challenges of AI must be addressed....

We aimed to produce a simple, inexpensive 3D printed phantom as a prototype for image quality assessment of contrast, contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR), signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and resolution in planar X-ray imaging systems. The test phantom was designed using SOLIDWORKS software, printed with a polylactic acid material and filled with paraffin wax...

Intrathecal drug delivery systems (IDDS) have emerged as a valuable treatment option for patients with chronic pain who have failed to achieve adequate relief with conventional therapies. These systems provide targeted delivery of medications directly to the cerebrospinal fluid, resulting in improved pain control and reduced systemic side effects....

Monitoring Radiotherapy Quality Assurance (QA) using Statistical Process Control (SPC) methods has gained wide acceptance. The significance of understanding the SPC methodologies has increased among the medical physics community with the release of Task Group (TG) reports from the American Association of Physicists in Medicine (AAPM) on patient-...

Background The main contributors to death and disability from chronic illnesses in developing nations are elevated blood pressure (hypertension), blood sugar (diabetes mellitus), and blood cholesterol (dyslipidemia). Even though there are affordable treatments, the treatment gap for these conditions is still significant. Few pilot studies from indu...

The aim of the study was to investigate how phase angle (PhA) is associated with subtotal and lumbar spine bone mineral density [BMD], lean soft tissue mass [LSTM], total body fat mass, android and gynoid in children and adolescents with HIV according to sex. A cross-sectional study was conducted in Florianópolis, Brazil, involving 64 children and...

In Colombia, medical physics started formally about 3 decades ago. Two master’s programs in medical physics initiated activities at two different universities. In particular, the master’s program at the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana has been underway since 2012, and taking into account its projections, a team was established in 2015 in collabora...

The Institute of Radiation Protection and Dosimetry (IRD) is a research and development institution, linked to the Brazilian Nuclear Energy Commission (CNEN), with a tradition of training human resources in the areas of radiation protection, dosimetry, medical physics and metrology of ionizing radiation. Despite this relevance, the IRD has suffered...

The concept of gender equity is debatable, and health professionals worldwide are subject to this heated argument. However, the contextual situations and experiences are different in each country and vary across cultures. There is an extensive amount of literature indicating that women’s participation has increased in science, technology, engineer...

Background Different approaches are used to classify obesity severity. The Edmonton Obesity Staging System (EOSS) considers medical, physical and psychological parameters. A new modified EOSS with a different functional evaluation method, measuring Cardiorespiratory Fitness (CRF), has been recently proposed, EOSS-CRF. Bariatric surgery (BS) is one...

Today, the use of artificial intelligence in electron optics, as in many other fields, has begun to increase. In this scope, we present a machine learning framework to predict experimental cross-section data. Our framework includes 8 deep learning models and 13 different machine learning algorithms that learn the fundamental structure of the data....

Introduction: With the global prevalence of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), an increasing number of people are experiencing respiratory discomfort. Respiratory biomechanics can monitor breathing patterns and respiratory movements and it is easier to prevent, diagnose, treat or rehabilitate. However, there is still a lack of global knowledge st...

Objective: Estimate of the probability density of the microdosimetric quantities in macroscopic matter is indispensable for applying the concept of microdosimetry to medical physics and radiological protection. Particle and Heavy Ion Transport code System (PHITS) enables estimating the microdosimetric probability densities due to its unique hybrid...

Krylov subspace methods are a powerful family of iterative solvers for linear systems of equations, which are commonly used for inverse problems due to their intrinsic regularization properties. Moreover, these methods are naturally suited to solve large-scale problems, as they only require matrix-vector products with the system matrix (and its adj...

Background: Dark-field imaging is a novel imaging modality that allows for the assessment of material interfaces by exploiting the wave character of x-ray. While it has been extensively studied in chest imaging, only little is known about the modality for imaging other tissues. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to evaluate whether a clinical...

Purpose We present the first study to investigate Large Language Models (LLMs) in answering radiation oncology physics questions. Because popular exams like AP Physics, LSAT, and GRE have large test-taker populations and ample test preparation resources in circulation, they may not allow for accurately assessing the true potential of LLMs. This pap...

An individual with a speech disorder, autism, brain injury, autistic spectrum disorders, and stroke usually has trouble producing or forming the spoken sounds necessary for effective interactions. As a result, patients' rehabilitation and treatment typically take a long time and involve ongoing medication, physical activity, and rehabilitation trai...

Background: Boron Neutron Capture Therapy (BNCT) is an emerging radiotherapy. There are ongoing efforts to develop a Canadian accelerator-based BNCT center. However, it remains unclear how Canadian radiation oncologists (RO), medical physicists (MP), and their trainees perceive BNCT and its impact on radiation oncology as a discipline. Methods:...

This work of fiction is part of a case study series developed by the Medical Physics Leadership Academy (MPLA). It is intended to facilitate the discussion of how students and advisors can better communicate expectations and navigate difficult conversations. In this case, a fourth-year Ph.D. student Emma learns that her advisor Dr. So is leaving th...

Lack of adherence in patients with chronic illnesses is significant burden for health care system all over the world. Therefore, it is important to find which factors do contribute to improve adherent behaviour. The aim of this study was to find out how resilience and illness denial predicts adherent behaviour in patients with chronic illnesses in...

Although Medical Physics educators have historically contributed to the education of the non-physics healthcare professions, their role was not studied in a systematic manner. In 2009, EFOMP set up a group to research the issue. In their first paper, the group carried out an extensive literature review regarding physics teaching for the non-physics...

Ulnar neuropathy at the elbow is a common entrapment mononeuropathy. Leaning the elbow on hard floors for a long time, frequent and strong elbow movements, and chronic diseases such as diabetes mellitus may be the risk factors for ulnar neuropathy. Patients often present with sensory abnormalities in the fourth/fifth finger and weakness in the hand...

Monte Carlo (MC) radiotherapy treatment planning has become practical in medical physics, particularly with the rapid development of computer technology. Requires detailed knowledge of linear medical accelerators (Linacs) beam radiation. In the present work the basic dosimetric properties of the 6-MV photon beam and the Varian Clinic 600CLinac were...

Background Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) has been associated with a broad range of health-related issues. Unhealthy lifestyle habits such as physical inactivity, an unhealthy diet, smoking, and alcohol consumption are hypothesized to contribute to this association. However, the lifestyle habits of individuals with OCD have been scarcely inves...

Radiopharmaceutical Therapy and Dosimetry Robert F. Hobbs, Joe O’Donoghue, and Jessica Clements Editors American Association of Physicists in Medicine 2023 Summer School Proceedings University of Minnesota Minneapolis, Minnesota June 2–7, 2023 Published for the American Association of Physicists in Medicine by Medical Physics Publishing, Inc.

Dear Colleagues, Metamaterials are macroscopic composite materials with periodic subwavelength structures whose electromagnetic properties can be controlled not only by varying the chemical composition but also by engineering the shape of the meta-atoms and their internal structures, as well as the mutual positions and orientations of the meta-ato...

Introduction Complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS) is characterized by extreme pain in a limb disproportional to the clinical history or physical findings accompanied by the signs of autonomic dysfunction. The pathophysiology of CRPS is obscure, making it challenging to treat. Treatment options include medications, physical therapy, and psychologic...

This publication aims at providing medical physicists with an overview of the basic principles and applications of professional ethics, examples of medical physics related scenarios in which ethical principles are applied and providing information on educational resources. The IAEA officers responsible for this publication were G. Loreti and D. va...

Investigation of the interaction of radiations with biomolecules has several applications in the fields of radiation biophysics, radiation protection, medical biology, and medical physics. In this study, a comprehensive radiological parameterization of proton and alpha particles interactions at the energy range of (1 keV-10 GeV) and (1 keV-1 GeV),...

Background While regular physical activity is associated with reduced mortality and morbidity in general populations, health outcomes and functional capacity related to upholding strenuous endurance exercise beyond the age of 65 years are only sparsely studied. The aim of this study is to assess associations of prolonged strenuous endurance sport p...

Background: Radiation therapy (RT) is an established palliative treatment for bone metastases; however, little is known about post-radiation survival and factors which impact it. The aim of this study was to assess a population-based sample of metastatic prostate cancer patients receiving palliative radiation therapy to bone metastases and contemp...

Background The Ionising Radiation Section within Medical Physics at the University Hospital of Wales, Cardiff provides a bone densitometry service based on two dual energy x-ray absorptiometry (DXA) scanners operated by Clinical Technologists. In 2017, approximately 5,500 patients were scanned per annum. A number of staffing difficulties reduced sc...

Introduction: The Aga Khan University Hospital, Karachi (JCIA Accredited), Pakistan's first private international university, is committed to the provision of education, research, and health care of international standards relevant to Pakistan and the region. In line with this vision, a state-of-the-art Radiation Oncology facility started, Two-year...

Resumos aceitos para o XXVII Congresso Brasileiro de Física Médica, realizado pela Associação Brasileira de Física Médica, de 12 a 15 de junho de 2023, em São Pedro-SP.

Las habilidades blandas son fundamentales en el quehacer científico, particularmente las relacionadas a comunicación oral en inglés. En la Escuela de Física de la Universidad de Costa Rica se ha implementado desde 2017 un intercambio virtual estudiantil. El proyecto realiza actividades con énfasis en temas de Física Médica y cuenta con participante...

In 2006, the European Federation of Organisations for Medical Physics (EFOMP) adopted the "Malaga Declaration". The declaration asserted the fundamental role of Medical Physics professionals in the radiation protection of patients, workers, general public, carers and comforters and research participants in hospitals. However, since that time the Me...

Background: The patient-specific 3D printed anthropomorphic phantom is used for breast cancer after mastectomy developed by the laboratory of medical physics and biophysics, Department of Physics, Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember, Indonesia. This phantom is applied to simulate and measure the radiation interactions occurring in the human body e...

In experimental research it is very much essential to obtain the quality control of the system used for the experiment. NaI (Tl) scintillation detector is the most commonly used in radiation and medical physics for measurement of the gamma ray activity of various samples. In addition, the scintillation detector has a lot of applications in the elem...

Chagas Disease (CD) is highly prevalent among the indigenous populations in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, Colombia. Villages examined show prevalence rates ranging from 43.6% up to 67.4%. In the present study, associated medical conditions were assessed with a particular focus on ECG alterations. CD diagnosis was based on a rapid test, two diff...

Cryptogenic stroke is a debilitating condition that requires follow-up care and treatment that is appropriate for the underlying etiology. Here, we present the case of a 46-year-old uninsured patient with an undocumented immigration status who presented to our student-run clinic (SRC) for the management of her post-stroke care. She initially presen...

This position statement represents a consensus of an expert committee composed by the Italian Academy of General Dentistry (Accademia Italiana Odontoiatria Generale COI-AIOG) and Italian Academy of Legal and Forensic Dentistry (Accademia Italiana di Odontoiatria Legale e Forense OL-F) on the appropriate use of cone beam computed tomography (C.B.C.T...

Funding Acknowled