A symposium on Advances in Clinical Radiobiology was organized by the Department of Radiation Oncology at the Amrita School of Medicine during February 23 -24, 2013.

The symposium shed light on the current radiobiological concepts being used in the field of modern radiation oncology practice.

Distinguished speakers and faculty from all over the country and abroad, in addition to Amrita faculty, delivered lectures.

Radiobiology is the study of the effects of ionizing radiation on living tissue. Ionizing radiation includes photons (x-rays and gamma rays) and particle radiation (electrons, protons, neutrons, carbon ions, alpha particles, and beta particles). This can kill cells or change genes. This principle is used in radiation oncology to treat cancers and tumors.

Radiation physicists and oncologists determine and select the type, energy of radiation and technique of radiation treatment most suitable for treating a patient’s cancer.

Dr. Sanjay S. Supe, Associate Professor of Radiation Physics at Kidwai Memorial Institute of Oncology spoke on radiobiological models. “The move towards individually-optimized treatments will need mathematical modeling to achieve its full potential,” he emphasized.

Radiobiological modeling is a field wherein one tries to predict either a response rate or complication rate for a particular radiation therapy using a mathematical model.

“These models can only show you the path. You have to correlate your clinical findings with these models and try to adjust the dose of radiation accordingly,” cautioned Dr. Arun Chougule, Professor of Radiation Physics at SMS Medical College, Jaipur.

Dr. Arun further discussed the concepts of nominal standard dose, cumulation radiation effect, time dose fractionation, tumor significant dose, linear quadratic model and extrapolated tolerance dose.

Dr. Issam El Naqa, Associate Professor of Medical Physics at McGill University, Montreal, Canada elaborated on hybrid imaging for radiotherapy. He stated that multimodality systems (PET/CT guided radiation therapy and combined PET/MRI) can produce images from different and complementary imaging techniques which can be fused together to yield better results for treatment.

Speaking on the benefits of Intensity Modulated Radiotherapy (IMRT), Dr. Paul B.

Ravindran, Professor of Radiation Physics at CMC Vellore, stated that IMRT has potentially higher cure rates and fewer side effects with a complication-free survival for patients.

Others who spoke at the symposium included Dr. Rajesh Kinhikar, Medical Physicist at Tata Memorial Hospital, Mumbai; Dr. Arun S. Oinam, Medical Physicist at Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research, Chandigarh; Mr. Raghavendra Holla, Medical Physicist at Amrita; Mr. Dayanand Sharma, Radiation Physicist at Kokilaben Dhirubhai Ambani Hospital, Mumbai.

March 21, 2013
School of Medicine, Kochi