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The Tundra Ecology -94 expedition investigated inflow of inorganic and organic carbon to the shelf seas by river runoff, and its transformation by biochemical processes in seawater and sediment. In addition, anthropogenic radionuclides, 137Cs, 90Sr, and239,240Pu, were studied in water and sediments. The distribution of dissolved inorganic carbon indicates that the majority of the Ob and Yenisey discharges flow into the Laptev Sea before entering the central Arctic Ocean. The sediment study shows that there is a marked difference in benthic oxygen uptake, efflux of dissolved inorganic carbon and nutrients between localities. 137Cs activity from the Chernobyl accident is 30% in the Barents, Kara, and Laptev Seas. 137Cs increased from 5-8 Bq m-3 in Barents Sea, 5-13 Bq m-3 in the Kara Sea to 8-15 Bq m-3 in the Laptev Sea, but with locally low concentrations at the river mouths. Corresponding values for 90Sr were 2.5, 3, and 4 Bq m-3, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the impact of breathing motion on proton breast treatment plans. Twelve patients with CT datasets acquired during breath-hold-at-inhalation (BHI), breath-hold-at-exhalation (BHE) and in free-breathing (FB) were included in the study. Proton plans were designed for the left breast for BHI and subsequently recalculated for BHE or designed for FB and recalculated for the extreme breath-hold phases. The plans were compared from the point of view of their target coverage and doses to organs-at-risk. The median amplitude of breathing motion determined from the positions of the sternum was 4.7mm (range 0.5-14.6mm). Breathing motion led to a degradation of the dose coverage of the target (heterogeneity index increased from 4-7% to 8-11%), but the degraded values of the dosimetric parameters of interest fulfilled the clinical criteria for plan acceptance. Exhalation decreased the lung burden [average dose 3.1-4.5Gy (RBE)], while inhalation increased it [average dose 5.8-6.8Gy (RBE)]. The individual values depended on the field arrangement. Smaller differences were seen for the heart [average dose 0.1-0.2Gy (RBE)] and the LAD [1.9-4.6Gy (RBE)]. Weak correlations were generally found between changes in dosimetric parameters and respiratory motion. The differences between dosimetric parameters for various breathing phases were small and their expected clinical impact is consequently quite small. The results indicated that the dosimetric parameters of the plans corresponding to the extreme breathing phases are little affected by breathing motion, thus suggesting that this motion might have little impact for the chosen beam orientations with scanned proton beams., (Copyright © 2017 Associazione Italiana di Fisica Medica. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Background Respiratory gating and proton therapy have both been proposed to reduce the cardiopulmonary burden in breast cancer radiotherapy. This study aims to investigate the additional benefit of proton radiotherapy for breast cancer with and without respiratory gating. Material and methods Twenty left-sided patients were planned on computed tomography (CT)-datasets acquired during enhanced inspiration gating (EIG) and free-breathing (FB), using photon three-dimensional conformal radiation therapy (3D-CRT) and scanned proton beams. Ten patients received treatment to the whole breast only (WBO) and 10 were treated to the breast and the regional lymph nodes (BRN). Dosimetric parameters characterizing the coverage of target volumes and the cardiopulmonary burden were compared using a paired, two-tailed Student's t-test. Results Protons ensured comparable or better target coverage than photons in all patients during both EIG and FB. The heterogeneity index decreased from 12% with photons to about 5% with protons. The mean dose to the ipsilateral lung was reduced in BRN patients from 12 Gy to 7 Gy  (RBE) in EIG and from 14 Gy to 6-7 Gy (RBE) in FB, while for WBO patients all values were about 5-6 Gy (RBE). The mean dose to heart decreased by a factor of four in WBO patients [from 1.1 Gy to 0.3 Gy (RBE) in EIG and from 2.1 Gy to 0.5 Gy (RBE) in FB] and 10 in BRN patients [from 2.1 Gy to 0.2 Gy (RBE) in EIG and from 3.4 Gy to 0.3 Gy (RBE) in FB]. Similarly, the mean and the near maximum dose to the left anterior descending artery (LAD) were significantly lower (p < 0.05) with protons in comparison with photons. Conclusion Proton spot scanning has a high potential to reduce the irradiation of organs at risk and other normal tissues for most patients, beyond what could be achieved with EIG and photon therapy. The largest dose sparing has been seen for BRN patients, both in terms of cardiopulmonary burden and integral dose.

Background: Intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) has been increasingly employed for treating head and neck (H&N) tumours due to its ability to produce isodoses suitable for the complex anatomy of the region. The aim of this study was to assess possible differences between IMRT and conformal radiation therapy (CRT) with regard to risk of radiation-induced secondary malignancies for H&N tumours., Material and Methods: IMRT and CRT plans were made for 10 H&N adult patients and the resulting treatment planning data were used to calculate the risk of radiation-induced malignancies in four different tissues. Three risk models with biologically relevant parameters were used for calculations. The influence of scatter radiation and repeated imaging sessions has also been investigated., Results: The results showed that the total lifetime risks of developing radiation-induced secondary malignancies from the two treatment techniques, CRT and IMRT, were comparable and in the interval 0.9-2.5%. The risk contributions from the primary beam and scatter radiation were comparable, whereas the contribution from repeated diagnostic imaging was considerably smaller., Conclusion: The results indicated that the redistribution of the dose characteristic to IMRT leads to a redistribution of the risks in individual tissues. However, the total levels of risk were similar between the two irradiation techniques considered.

Purpose: The present project studied the implications of using the irregular surface compensator (ISC) technique in comparison to three-dimensional conformal radiation therapy (3D-CRT) for breast cancer treatment. ISC is an electronic compensation algorithm that modulates the fluence across the radiation fields to compensate for irregularly-shaped surfaces and deliver a homogeneous dose to a compensation plane., Patients and Methods: Ten breast cancer patients (five left- and five right-sided) were planned with both techniques. The planning was done for 50 Gy in 25 fractions with 2 Gy per fraction in all patients. Physical parameters such as doses to the clinical target volume (CTV-T) and the planned target volume (PTV), heterogeneity index and doses to lung and heart were determined and compared for the treatment plans., Results: The ISC technique led to significantly better coverage of the CTV-T and PTV in almost all patients with statistically significant better homogeneity of the dose distribution. The contralateral lung and the heart receive the same dose with both ISC and 3D-CRT plans. However, ISC showed a trend towards decreasing the volumes of the ipsilateral lung irradiated with high doses., Conclusion: The ISC technique leads to an improvement of the target coverage and the radiation burden of the ipsilateral lung thus allowing better compliance with the national recommendations for breast radiotherapy and increasing the potential for improved quality of life for breast cancer patients. It should therefore be preferred over 3D-CRT for breast cases with difficult dose homogeneity to the PTV or CTV-T., (Copyright© 2014 International Institute of Anticancer Research (Dr. John G. Delinassios), All rights reserved.)

New data on the levels and long-range transport of plutonium in the Arctic Ocean, recorded in the course of two expeditions to this zone in 1994 and 1996, are discussed in this paper. Specifically, approximately 100 plutonium measurements in surface and sub-surface water sampled at 58 separate stations throughout the Kara, Laptev and East Siberian Seas, as well as along latitudinal transects across the Lomonosov Ridge, are reported and interpreted in terms of the circulation pathways responsible for the transport of this element from the North Atlantic to the Arctic Shelf and into the Arctic interior. In addition, the behaviour of plutonium in its transit through the vast Arctic shelf seas to open waters under extreme environmental conditions is discussed in terms of the partitioning of plutonium between filtered (<0.45 microm) seawater and suspended particulate, and its association with colloidal matter. Finally, limited evidence of the presence of a colloidal plutonium component in Arctic waters subject to direct riverine input is adduced.