Biomedical Physics in Radiotherapy for Cancer, 2012

The scientific and clinical foundations of Radiation Therapy are cross-disciplinary. This book endeavours to bring together the physics, the radiobiology, the main clinical aspects as well as available clinical evidence behind Radiation Therapy, presenting mutual relationships between these disciplines and their role in the advancements of radiation oncology.

Radiation interaction with matter.- Elements of radiobiology.- Elements of radiotherapy physics.- Tumour characteristics, development and response to radiation.- Fractionation and altered fractionation in radiotherapy.- Treatment planning techniques.- Three-dimensional conformal radiotherapy: radiobiology and physics aspects of treatment.- IMRT: radiobiology and physics aspects of treatment.- Brachytherapy: radiobiology and physics aspects of treatment.- SRS/SRT: radiobiology and physics aspects of treatment.- Whole-body irradiation: radiobiology and physics aspects of treatment.- Electron therapy: radiobiology and physics aspects of treatment.- Proton therapy: radiobiology and physics aspects of treatment.- Neutron therapy: radiobiology and physics aspects of treatment.- Predictive assays and treatment delivery verification.

A/Prof Loredana Marcu has a Masters Degree in Applied Physics and a PhD in Medical

Physics/Radiobiology. She has been lecturing since 1995, and previously published two

books on Mechanics and Teaching methodologies, respectively. She was awarded the title

‘Eminent Scientist of the year 2004’ by the International Council for Research and is the

recipient of the ‘Boyce Worthley award 2006’ given by the Australasian College of Physical

Scientists and Engineers in Medicine for her achievements in the areas of radiobiology

and medical physics.

A/Prof Eva Bezak has an MSc in both Nuclear and Medical Physics and a PhD in applied

Nuclear/Radiation Physics. She has been lecturing on radiation and radiotherapy physics

since 1999, and has supervised 13 postgraduate students in radiotherapy physics. She is

accredited by the Australasian College of Physical Scientists and Engineers in Medicine

(AC PSEM) in Radiotherapy Equipment Commissioning and Quality Assurance (2004) and

was nominated for the 2003 National Awards for Outstanding Women in Non-Traditional

Areas of Work and Study.

Prof Barry Allen is a biomedical physicist and Conjoint Professor of the St George Clinical

School, UNSW. Previously, he worked at ANSTO as a Chief Research Scientist. In the early

1980s Prof Allen turned his attention to the application of neutrons in medicine. He went

on to become President of the International Society for Neutron Capture Therapy and to

convene the Fourth International Symposium in Sydney in 1990. Prof Allen made the first

human body protein measurements in Australia, in collaboration with Sydney hospitals.

He has published more than 300 papers, and was elected President of the Asia Oceania

Federation of Medical Physics and President of the International Organisation of Medical

Physics in 2006. He was elected VicePresident of th