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S Hashemi,1 MR Aghamiri,1 M Kahani,1 R Jaberi21Radiation Medicine Engineering Department, Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran; 2Cancer Institute, Imam Khomeini Hospital, Tehran, IranBackground: During decades, all improvements and developments in radiation therapy technologies have been focused on its main goal: maximize the dose in the tumor and minimize it in surrounding normal tissues. Recently, scientists have some approaches to nanoparticles, especially gold nanoparticles (GNPs), for dose localization.Purpose: Herein, the effect of GNPs in combination with electron brachytherapy in a model of eye tumor has been investigated.Materials and methods: Monte Carlo simulation was utilized and a complete anatomical model of the eye, a tumor with 5 mm thick, and a type of Ruthenium-106 beta emitter ophthalmic plaque were simulated. Simulation results have been validated by a Plexiglas eye phantom and film dosimetry, experimentally.Results: The results showed using GNPs causes the dose amplification in 2 mm from the plaque surface which the higher concentration has the higher enhancement. At more distances, Dose Enhancement Factors (DEFs) have the negative amounts, so that total delivered dose to the tumor has decreased with increasing of Au concentrations and the dose of organ at risk like sclera has increased.Conclusion: Therefore, using of GNPs along with a 106,Ru/106,Rh ocular plaque, as an electron emitter source, is a good choice only for superficial lesions, and it is not recommended for deeper tumors due to the parameters of radiation treatment and delivered dose to the tissues.Keywords: gold-nanoparticles, dose enhancement, electron brachytherapy, Ru-106 eye plaque, Monte Carlo simulation

An abstract of the article "The effect of camel urine on islet morphology and CCL4-induced liver cirrhosis in rat," by S. Al Neyadi, R. Al Jaberi, R. Hameed, J. Shafarin, and E. Adeghate is presented.

Purpose: Feasibility of silica-based dosimeters for IVD of HDR prostate brachytherapy., Material and Methods: Plastic dosimeter holders and a water-fillable prostate phantom were built in-house. Interstitial prostate brachytherapy and Monte Carlo simulations were performed. The treatment planning, Monte-Carlo simulation, and dosimetry results were compared., Results: The relative differences between TLD-TPS, TLD-MCNP, and TPS-MCNP were 0.2-6.9 %, 0.5-6.5 %, and 0.6-6.3 %, respectively., Conclusion: Micro-silica bead dosimeters can perform offline in situ quality assurance in HDR prostate brachytherapy., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Objective: Overall treatment time (OTT) is an important index for local control in patients with locally advanced‌ cervical cancer treated with definitive chemoradiation (External Beam Radiation Therapy (EBRT), Brachytherapy (BT) and concomittant chemotherapy). This study aimed to evaluate the efficiency and safety of reducing OTT by shortening the brachytherapy duration to one week in the intervention group copared to three weeks in the control group., Method: The study was a non-randomized open-label phase II clinical trial, carried out on 49 cervical cancer patients (26 in intervention grouop and 23 in control group) who received EBRT concomitant with Cisplatin, followed by brachytherap in order to deliver 60 Gy  equivalent total doses in 2-Gy fractions (EQD2) to Intermediate Risk-Clinical Tumor Volume (IR-CTV) and 85-90 Gy EQD2 to High Risk-Clinical Tumor Volume (HR-CTV). In the intervention group, all brachytherapy sessions were performed in 1 week, while for the control group, it was administrated in 3 consecutive weeks. The participants were followed (Minimum follow up time was 6 month and median follow up time was 10 month) to assess response and toxicity of the treatment., Results: Overall, more than 95% of study participants had a complete response and more than 4.0% reported partial response, and no treatment failure was observed. The complete response in intervention and control groups was 96.1% and 95.6%, respectively (P value > 0.05). There was no difference in acute toxicity between the two groups., Conclusion: considering that short course brachytherapy was non inferior to conventional course from point of  Response Rate and Side Effects during follow up time; so this strategy can be  considered as an option for reducing the OTT which can at least cause decreasing the costs. Studies with larger sample size and phase 3 are recommended.

Background: Ocular melanoma is a rare kind of eye malignancy that threatens the patient's eyesight. Radiotherapy and surgical removal are the most commonly used therapeutic modalities, and nanomedicine has lately entered this field. Brachytherapy using Ruthenium-106 ( 106 Ru) ophthalmic plaques has been used for decades to treat ocular melanoma, with the applicator placed on the patient's eyes until the prescribed dose reaches the tumor apex., Purpose: To investigate the efficiency of hydrogen nanobubbles (H 2 -NBs) employment during intraocular melanoma brachytherapy using a 106 Ru electron emitter plaque., Methods: The Monte Carlo (MC) simulation and experimental investigation using a 3D-designed phantom and thermoluminescence dosimetry (TLD) were employed. Various concentrations of H 2 -NBs with a diameter of 100 nm were simulated inside tumor tissue. The results were presented as deposited energy and dose enhancement factor (DEF). An equivalent Resin phantom of the human eyeball was made using AutoCAD and 3D-Printer technologies. The glass-bead TLDs dosimeter were employed and placed inside the phantom., Results: Using a 1% concentration of H 2 -NBs, a DEF of 93% and 98% were achieved at the tumor apex of 10 mm from the experimental setup and MC simulation, respectively. For simulated concentrations of 0.1%, 0.3%, 0.5%, 1%, and 4% H 2 -NBs, a maximum dose enhancement of 154%, 174%, 188%, 200%, and 300% were achieved, respectively, and a dose reduction was seen at about 3 mm from the plaque surface., Conclusion: H 2 -NBs can be used as an absorbed dose enhancer in 106 Ru eye brachytherapy because of their unique physical characteristics. Reducing plaque implantation time on the patient's eye, reducing sclera absorbed dose, and decreasing the risk of patients' healthy organs irradiation are reported as some of the potential benefits of using H2-NBs., (© 2023 American Association of Physicists in Medicine.)

The effects of different chloride salt mixtures (I-control: 100% NaCl, II: 50:50-NaCl:KCl, III: 50:30:20-NaCl:KCl:MgCl 2 , IV: 50:30:20-NaCl:KCl:CaCl 2 , V: 50:30:10:10-NaCl:KCl:MgCl 2 :CaCl 2 ) on the quality properties of sucuk (a dry fermented beef sausage) during ripening were investigated. Lactic acid bacteria reached 8 log cfu/g in the 3 days of fermentation in all treatments. However, salt mixtures including MgCl 2 caused an increase in Micrococcus/Staphylococcus . The control group showed the lowest mean a w value at the end of ripening. The salt mixture with 20% CaCl 2 showed the lowest mean pH value of 4.97. The mean TBARS value varied between 6.34 and 6.97 µmol MDA/kg but was not affected by the salt mixtures ( p > 0.05). According to the results of PCA, salt mixtures I, II and III had a positive correlation in PC1, and PC1 also separated salt mixtures with CaCl 2 (IV and V) from other groups. In addition, a strong positive correlation between the control and III group (50:30:20-NaCl:KCl:MgCl 2 ) for sensory properties was determined by heatmap clustering analysis. In addition, the principal component analysis showed that the control, II, and III groups had a stronger correlation with each other for volatile compounds.

Background: This study was conducted to evaluate the effect of brachytherapy (BT) customized mold [Condensation silicone elastomer (Protesil TM )] and its thickness on the dose distribution pattern of deep nonmelanoma skin cancers (NMSC)., Materials and Methods: Four blocks of mold material were constructed in 5, 10, 15, and 20 mm thickness and 100 × 100 mm 2 area by a plastic cast. The high dose rate (HDR) plus treatment planning system (TPS) (Version 3, Eckert & Ziegler BEBIG Gmbh, Berlin, Germany) with a 60 Co source (model: Co0.A86, EZAG BEBIG, Berlin, Germany) as an high dose rate brachytherapy (HDR-BT) source was used. Solid phantom and MOSFET TM and GAFCHROMIC TM EBT3 film dosimeters were used for experimental dosimetry of the different thicknesses (up to 20 mm) of BT customized mold. Skin dose and dose to different depths were evaluated., Result: The TPS overestimated the calculated dose to the surface. Skin dose can be reduced from 250% to 150% of the prescription dose by increasing mold thickness from 5 mm to 20 mm. There was a 7.7% difference in the calculated dose by TPS and the measured dose by MOSFET. There was a good agreement between film dosimetry, MOSFET detector, and TPS' results in depths less than 5 mm., Conclusion: Each BT department should validate any individualized material chosen to construct the customized surface BT mold. Increasing the mold thickness can treat lesions without overexposing the skin surface. Superficial BT can be recommended as an appropriate treatment option for some deep NMSC lesions (up to 20 mm) with pre-planning considerations employing thicker molds., Competing Interests: Conflicts of interest None declared., (© 2022 Greater Poland Cancer Centre.)

The aim of this publication is the assessment of the existing guidelines for non-melanoma skin cancer (NMSC) superficial brachytherapy (BT) and make a critical review based on the existing literature about the maximum dose prescription depth, bolus thickness and maximum skin surface dose (D max ) of the published clinical practice. A systematic review of NMSC superficial BT published articles was carried out by the GEC-ESTRO Head & Neck and Skin (HNS) Working Group (WG). 10 members and 2 external reviewers compared the published clinical procedures with the recommendations in the current guidelines and examined the grade of evidence. Our review verified that there is a large variation among centres with regards to clinical practice in superficial BT and identified studies where published parameters such as maximum dose prescription depth, bolus thickness and D max exceed the constraints recommended in the guidelines, while showing excellent results in terms of local control, toxicity and cosmesis. This review confirmed that current recommendations on skin superficial BT do not include published experience on tumours treated with superficial BT that require dose prescription depth beyond the recommended 5 mm under the skin surface and that the existing literature does not provide sufficient evidence to relate dosimetry of superficial BT to patient reported outcome measures. The GEC-ESTRO HNS WG considers acceptable to prescribe superficial BT dose at a depth above 5 mm beyond the skin surface, and modify the bolus thickness to optimize the treatment plan and adjust the acceptable maximum dose on the skin surface, all pending clinical situation., (Copyright © 2022 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Purpose: This study aimed to evaluate the feasibility of defining an in vivo dosimetry (IVD) protocol as a patient-specific quality assurance (PSQA) using the bead thermoluminescent dosimeters (TLDs) for point and 3D IVD during brachytherapy (BT) of gynecological (GYN) cancer using 60 Co high-dose-rate (HDR) source., Methods: The 3D in vivo absorbed dose verification within the rectum and bladder as organs-at-risk was performed by bead TLDs for 30 GYN cancer patients. For rectal wall dosimetry, 80 TLDs were placed in axial arrangements around a rectal tube covered with a layer of gel. Ten beads were placed inside the Foley catheter to get the bladder-absorbed dose. Beads TLDs were localized and defined as control points in the treatment planning system (TPS) using CT images of the patients. Patients were planned and treated using the routine BT protocol. The experimentally obtained absorbed dose map of the rectal wall and the point dose of the bladder were compared to the TPSs predicted absorbed dose at these control points., Results: Relative difference between TPS and TLDs results were -8.3% ± 19.5% and -7.2% ± 14.6% (1SD) for rectum- and bladder-absorbed dose, respectively. Gamma analysis was used to compare the calculated with the measured absorbed dose maps. Mean gamma passing rates of 84.1%, 90.8%, and 92.5% using the criteria of 3%/2 mm, 3%/3 mm, and 4%/2 mm were obtained, respectively. Eventually, a "considering level" of at least 85% as pass rate with 4%/2-mm criteria was recommended., Conclusions: A 3D IVD protocol employing bead TLDs was presented to measure absorbed doses delivered to the rectum and bladder during GYN HDR-BT as a reliable PSQA method. 3D rectal absorbed dose measurements were performed. Differences between experimentally measured and planned absorbed dose maps were presented in the form of a gamma index, which may be used as a warning for corrective action., (© 2022 The Authors. Journal of Applied Clinical Medical Physics published by Wiley Periodicals, LLC on behalf of The American Association of Physicists in Medicine.)

Background: To report the long-term outcomes of Ru-106 plaque radiotherapy in eyes with uveal melanoma (UM) and to assess the effect of tumor thickness and location on final outcomes., Methods: Medical records of 234 patients undergoing Ru-106 plaque radiotherapy for UM were reviewed, and the visual outcome, globe preservation, and patient survival were evaluated. The results of 2 groups were compared: 1. between thin (small and medium-sized, thickness < 7 mm, 148 eyes [63.2%]) and thick (thickness ≥ 7 mm, 86 eyes [36.8%]) tumors, and 2. between large (largest basal diameter [LBD] > 12 mm, 109 eyes [46.6%]) and medium/small (LBD ≤ 12 mm, 125 eyes [53.4%]). In addition, a comparison of the juxtapapillary location in 46 eyes (19.7%) versus tumors arising elsewhere and between tumors with and without ciliary involvement in 48 eyes (21.5%) were done., Results: The patients were followed for a median of 54.2 months (range: 6-194.5 months). After adjusting for baseline visual acuity (VA), there was no significant association between final VA and different dimension and tumor location groups. Final globe preservation was 91.9%, and there was no significant difference between different dimension- and ciliary body involvement groups regarding anatomical success rate. The juxtapapillary tumors had lower globe preservation (80.4% vs .94.7%, p = 0.002). The hazard ratio (HR) for enucleation in juxtapapillary tumors was HR = 6.58 (95-CI: 3.84 to 11.21). The overall metastasis rate was 6.8%, with no significant difference in juxtapapillary tumors (4.3% vs.7.4%, p = 0.455)., Conclusions: Ru-106 plaque radiotherapy is an effective treatment for thick and large UM. With this type of treatment, the globe preservation rate is lower in juxtapapillary tumors, but there is no significant difference in the metastasis rate., (© 2022. The Author(s).)

Purpose: This retrospective study aims to evaluate the efficacy and safety of salvage HDR brachytherapy in second local recurrences of prostate cancer after applying radical prostatectomy (RP) and post-operative external beam radiotherapy (EBRT)., Materials and Methodology: Fifteen patients with locally recurrent prostate cancer after RP and EBRT were salvaged with HDR brachytherapy. Patients had no nodal or distant metastasis evidence on imaging findings, including whole body bone scan, CT scan, and MRI or PSMA PET scan. HDR brachytherapy was applied with 36 Gy in four fractions, in two implantations with 1 week apart. We followed the patients for a control visit every 3 months for 2 years, and every 6 months thereafter., Results: Fifteen patients with the mean age of 64 years (ranged 51-79) underwent salvage HDR brachytherapy. The mean baseline level of PSA was calculated 2.26 ng/ml (ranged from 0.21 to 9, SD = 2.33), which has been significantly decreased in all patients. Hence, two of our patients experienced a biochemical failure during the follow-up period. Our results showed that 86.6% (n = 13) of patients had never experienced a significant increment in PSA level after a median follow-up of 48 months (ranging from 12 to 132 months). Besides, salvage HDR brachytherapy did not induce any significant side effects such as acute or late rectal complications, despite causing urinary complication., Conclusions: HDR brachytherapy could be considered as a treatment in well-selected patients with the second recurrence in their prostatic bed after the former EBRT allowing for dose escalating to the second nodular recurrence., (© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature B.V.)

Purpose: This study investigated the correlation between the prescription dose and dose to the Manchester and International Commission on Radiation Units and Measurements-report 38 (ICRU-38) lymphatic trapezoid points during high-dose-rate (HDR) brachytherapy of locally advanced cervical cancer with (Cobalt-60) 60Co ., Methods and Materials: A retrospective study was designed for; patients with locally advanced cervical cancer, treated by external beam radiotherapy and concurrent weekly Cisplatin-based chemotherapy, had no extended parametrial invasion and was treated by tandem-ovoid set, from 2017 to 2020. Groupe Européen de Curiethérapie-European Society for Radiotherapy and Oncology (GEC-ESTRO) based target's volume, ICRU-89 revised version of Manchester points A and B, and ICRU-38 lymph node surrogate points were determined, and their dose was recorded. Paired sample t-test, linear regression analysis, and Pearson correlation analyses were done considering a statistical significance level of 0.05 and using IBM SPSS statistics (Version 23, IBM Crop.)., Results: Seventy-four brachytherapy cases were included. A positive and strong correlation was observed between D 90 of clinical target volume (CTV HR ) and points A and B dose for CTV HR 〈 15 cc and 〉 35 cc. Strong and significant (p < 0.05) correlations were achieved between pelvic wall points dose and D 90 and D 100 of the obturator and between D 50 and hot points of internal iliac lymph nodes. A strong correlation was obtained between D 50 and D 90 of external iliac lymph nodes and their ICRU points., Conclusions: Strong correlations were obtained between dose to the pelvic lymphatic chains and their historical ICRU-38 surrogate points during HDR brachytherapy of locally advanced cervical cancer patients with 60Co tandem-ovoid applicator sets. The correlation strength between point A and prescription dose highly depends on the CTV HR volume., (Copyright © 2021 American Brachytherapy Society. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Background: Glioblastoma is one of the most radioresistant cancers. It is suggested that combination of radiotherapy with other cancer treatment modalities may increase control of tumor. Temozolomide (TMZ) is one of the most known drugs for glioblastoma. It has shown that TMZ via induction of mutation and cell death can kill glioma cells., Objective: In the current study, we aimed to show possible radiosensitization effect of TMZ for glioma cells. In addition, results compared to response of normal fibroblast cells to TMZ and irradiation., Material and Methods: This is in vitro study for evaluation of the effect of TMZ and irradiation on high grade glioma cells and normal fibroblasts. The human fibroblast and glioma cells were cultured as monolayer. The cells were treated with 2000 μM TMZ, which was equal drug dose for IC50%. In addition, irradiation was done with 5Gy gamma rays. The formation of colony was observed following irradiation, treatment with TMZ, and combination both of them., Results: The formation of colony for both glioma and fibroblast cells showed a reduction following irradiation or treatment with TMZ. Irradiation showed more toxicity compared to TMZ for glioma cells, but not fibroblast cells. Combination of TMZ and irradiation showed a significant reduction in the colony formation compared to irradiation or TMZ treatment alone., Conclusion: This study showed that TMZ increases sensitivity of both glioma and fibroblast cells to ionizing radiation., (Copyright: © Journal of Biomedical Physics and Engineering.)

Purpose: Post-surgery radiation can reduce the risk of loco-regional relapse in high-intermediate-risk endometrial cancer. High-dose-rate vaginal cuff brachytherapy (HDR-BRT) is an acceptable method of radiation in majority of endometrial cancer cases. Although 2D planning is frequently used for treatment based on physical examination without any imaging, measurement of the dose received by organs-at-risk (OARs) is not possible. Therefore, the present study was the first to compare dose delivered to target and OARs in 2D vs. 3D planning in patients treated with cobalt-60 source., Material and Methods: In this study, organs including vagina wall, bladder, rectum, and sigmoid were contoured on computed tomography (CT) scan images of 37 endometrial cancer patients, and doses delivered to organs were recorded. Statistics, such as D 90 , D 99 , V 100 , V 150 , V 200 , D 0.1cc , D 1cc , and D 2cc were determined., Results: D 90 and D 99 were lower in 3D treatment planning in comparison with 2D. Although V 100 was more in 3D planning, V 150 and V 200 were less. Analyzing D 0.1cc , D 1cc , and D 2cc of OARs revealed that doses given to rectum, sigmoid, and bladder were less in 3D planning compared to 2D., Conclusions: Comparison of 2D and 3D planning results showed that 3D planning could deliver an appropriate dose to the target while sparing more OARs., Competing Interests: The authors report no conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2021 Termedia.)

Purpose: Iridium-192 brachytherapy dose enhancement by gold nanoparticles was investigated in five different tumor tissues to observe the tissue-related differences as an effective environmental factor in the applications of nanoparticles as radio-enhancer agents., Methods and Materials: The brachytherapy high-dose-rate source of BEBIG Ir-192, a tumor volume with five different tissues including water, Plexiglas, soft tissue, adipose, and bone with and without a uniform distribution of gold nanoparticles were mimicked by MCNPX Monte Carlo simulation code using lattice feature. Dose enhancement factors in the tumor volume were measured separately regarding the types of tissue, and a previous study using GEometry ANd Tracking 4 simulation was used for result validation., Results: The results demonstrated that various types of tissue, as the host of gold nanoparticles, lead to different dose enhancement level, so that the bone and adipose have the lowest and the highest amount of dose enhancement factor with values 20.8% and 39.75%, respectively. The maximum difference of 4.8% was achieved from data benchmarking., Conclusions: The results of this study indicate that the MCNPX code can be used as a valid tool for dose measurement in the presence of nanoparticles. Moreover, tissue types of tumor as an environmental feature, alongside with the nanoparticle's size and concentration as well as the conditions of radiotherapy, should be considered in the dose calculation., (Copyright © 2020 American Brachytherapy Society. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Neural stem cells (NSCs) are multipotent, self-renewable cells who are capable of differentiating into neurons, astrocytes, and oligodendrocytes. NSCs reside at the subventricular zone (SVZ) of the adult brain permanently to guarantee a lifelong neurogenesis during neural network plasticity or undesirable injuries. Although the specious inaccessibility of adult NSCs niche hampers their in vivo identification, researchers have been seeking ways to optimize adult NSCs isolation, expansion, and differentiation, in vitro. NSCs were isolated from rhesus monkey SVZ, expanded in vitro and then characterized for NSCs-specific markers expression by immunostaining, real-time PCR, flow cytometry, and cell differentiation assessments. Moreover, cell survival as well as self-renewal capacity were evaluated by TUNEL, Live/Dead and colony assays, respectively. In the next step, to validate SVZ-NSCs identity in other species, a similar protocol was applied to isolate NSCs from adult rat's SVZ as well. Our findings revealed that isolated SVZ-NSCs from both monkey and rat preserve proliferation capacity in at least nine passages as confirmed by Ki67 expression. Additionally, both SVZ-NSCs sources are capable of self-renewal in addition to NESTIN, SOX2, and GFAP expression. The mortality was measured meager with over 95% viability according to TUNEL and Live/Dead assay results. Eventually, the multipotency of SVZ-NSCs appraised authentic after their differentiation into neurons, astrocytes, and oligodendrocytes. In this study, we proposed a reliable method for SVZ-NSCs in vitro maintenance and identification, which, we believe is a promising cell source for therapeutic approach to recover neurological disorders and injuries condition.

Oleogels can be used to provide solid-like properties without using high levels of saturated fatty acids. In this study, the edible oleogels structure developed based on egg white protein (EWP) (5%) and xanthan gum (XG) (0%, 1%, 0.5%, and 0.75% wt/wt) complex by using aerogels system as a template for oleogel preparation. The effect of pH on the EWP-XG mixture indicated the creation of a soluble complex of EWP-XG in pH 5.5. The Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy confirmed the interaction between EWP and XG. The amount of absorbed oil was considerably higher in EWP-XG aerogels. SEM showed a soft surface in EWP 5% aerogel, which can be the reason for its less oil absorption. The aerogel and oleogel including more XG concentration had a stronger network structure and created more elastic oleogels. The light microscopy images revealed by increasing of XG concentration, the structure of protein gel mesh became more compact and regular. The XRD patterns of the aerogels did not show any clear differences between crystallinity of the samples. Therefore, it can be concluded that the aerogels based on the structuring of EWP-XG complexes have a high potential as a three-dimensional network for the oil absorption and creating oleogel., (© 2020 Wiley Periodicals LLC.)

Purpose: The aim of this study was to construct a low-cost, anthropomorphic, and 3D-printed pelvis phantom and evaluate the feasibility of its use to perform 3D dosimetry with commercially available bead thermoluminescent dosimeters (TLDs)., Material and Methods: A novel anthropomorphic female phantom was developed with all relevant pelvic organs to position the bead TLDs. Organs were 3D-printed using acrylonitrile butadiene styrene. Phantom components were confirmed to have mass density and computed tomography (CT) numbers similar to relevant tissues. To find out clinically required spatial resolution of beads to cause no perturbation effect, TLDs were positioned with 2.5, 5, and 7.5 mm spacing on the surface of syringe. After taking a CT scan and creating a 4-field conformal radiotherapy plan, 3 dose planes were extracted from the treatment planning system (TPS) at different depths. By using a 2D-gamma analysis, the TPS reports were compared with and without the presence of beads. Moreover, the bead TLDs were placed on the organs' surfaces of the pelvis phantom and exposed to high-dose-rate (HDR) 60 Co source. TLDs' readouts were compared with the TPS calculated doses, and dose surface histograms (DSHs) of organs were plotted., Results: 3D-printed phantom organs agreed well with body tissues regarding both their design and radiation properties. Furthermore, the 2D-gamma analysis on the syringe showed more than 99% points passed 3%- and 3-mm criteria at different depths. By calculating the integral dose of DSHs, the percentage differences were -1.5%, 2%, 5%, and 10% for uterus, rectum, bladder, and sigmoid, respectively. Also, combined standard uncertainty was estimated as 3.5% ( k = 1)., Conclusions: A customized pelvis phantom was successfully built and assessed to confirm properties similar to body tissues. Additionally, no significant perturbation effect with different bead resolutions was presented by the external TPS, with 0.1 mm dose grid resolution., Competing Interests: Jafari S. is founder and CTO of TrueInvivo Ltd., UK. The rest of authors report no conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2020 Termedia.)

Purpose: This study evaluates the outcomes of ruthenium-106 (Ru-106) plaque brachytherapy for vasoproliferative tumors (VPTs) of the ocular fundus in a single referral ocular oncology center., Methods: The clinical charts of all patients diagnosed with VPT who underwent plaque radiotherapy from 2002 to 2017 were reviewed. Clinical features, types of treatment, outcomes and complications were evaluated., Results: Of 46 patients with VPT diagnosis in our ocular oncology clinic, 25 (54.34%) cases were treated with Ru-106 plaque brachytherapy. Eleven patients (44%) were male, and the mean age at the time of diagnosis was 40.92 ± 13.11 years. The mean follow-up time was 47.56 ± 36.87 months. Inferotemporal quadrant was the most common site of the tumor (64.00%). The mean delivered apex and scleral dose was 101.56 ± 6.51 and 412.26 ± 113.66 Gray (Gy), respectively. Initial tumor length, width and thickness were 10.26 ± 3.42, 8.05 ± 2.83 and 4.27 ± 1.10 mm, respectively. The mean tumor thickness decreased to 2.60 ± 0.63 mm, postoperatively. Complete resolution of subretinal fluid around the tumor was achieved in 81.80% of cases. Visual acuity was more than 20/400 in 64% of patients before treatment and 60% of patients at last follow-up., Conclusion: Our study showed that Ru-106 plaque radiotherapy is an effective and safe method of treatment in VPTs.

spinal cord injury (SCI) is a traumatic damage that can causes a loss of neurons around the lesion site and resulting in locomotor and sensory deficits. Currently, there is widely attempts in improvement of treatment strategy and cell delivering to the central nervous system (CNS). The usage of hyaluronic acid (HA), the main components of the ECM in CNS tissue and neural stem cells (NSCs) niche, is a good selection that can increase of viability and differentiation of NSCs. Importantly, we demonstrate that encapsulation of human embryonic stem cell derived-neural stem cells (hESC-NS) in HA-based hydrogel can increased differentiation these cells into oligodendrocytes and improved locomotor function., (Copyright © 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

A large number of treatment approaches have been used for spinal cord injury improvement, a medically incurable disorder, and subsequently stem cell transplantation appears to be a promising strategy. The main objective of this study is to ascertain whether combinational therapy of human neural stem cells (hNSCs) together with lithium chloride improves cell survival, proliferation, and differentiation in a rat spinal contusion model, or not. Contusive spinal cord injury was implemented on Wistar male rats. Experimental groups comprised of: control, hNSCs transplanted, lithium chloride (Li), and hNSCs and lithium chloride (hNSCs + Li). In every experimental group, locomotor activity score and motor evoked potential (MEP) were performed to evaluate motor recovery as well as histological assessments to determine mechanisms of improvement. In accordance with our results, the hNSCs + Li and the Li groups showed significant improvement in locomotor scores and MEP. Also, Histological assessments revealed that transplanted hNSCs are capable of differentiation and migration along the spinal cord. Although NESTIN-positive cells were proliferated significantly in the Lithium group in comparison with control and the hNSCs + Li groups, the quantity of ED1 cells in the hNSCs + Li was significantly larger than the other two groups. Our results demonstrate that combinational therapy of hNSCs with lithium chloride and lithium chloride individually are adequate for ameliorating more than partial functional recovery and endogenous repair in spinal cord-injured rats., (© 2019 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.)