Review on modern techniques in diagnostic and planning radiology

Abstract

Radiation therapy or radiotherapy (RT or XRT) is the therapy of a series of diseases with ionizing radiation, mostly for cancer treatment by killing malignant cells by X-rays. The X-ray RT could be combined with brachytherapy and irradiation by photon or electron beams. Brachytherapy is delivered by placing the radiation source(s) inside or next to the area that requires treatment. It is widely used as an effective treatment for cervical, prostate, breast, skin cancer and some others. History of the X-ray discovery and their applications in medical X-ray imaging and the cancer treatment is discussed in many books and textbooks.1–3 Radiation therapy acts on the affected tissues and malignant cells by direct damaging of their DNA or indirect damage via ionization of their atoms and water molecules, promoting the free hydroxyl radicals formation. The photon therapy acts by free radical formation. Since the cancer cells possess lower ability to repair the cellular damage in comparison with healthy ones, and the radiation damage accumulates in the cancer cells gradually leading to their death or, at least the much lower reproducibility. Heavy charged particles like protons, boron, carbon, and neon ions cause significant damage to doublestranded DNA of the cancer cells by direct high energy transfer. Those particles produce small side scatter to the healthy tissue due to their large masses. Nowadays combination of the X-ray, photon and heavy particle beams is a promising developing technology.4–6 Contemporary methods of the treatment/surgery planning and control over the therapy/rehabilitation processes are based on precise visualization and digitization of the target region not only in the radiation oncology, but in all areas of modern medicine.3,7–9 Tremendous growth of computer technologies and methods of image acquisition and analyses influenced rapid development of new approaches allowing more precise targeting of the malignant tissues, dose calculation, treatment planning and the dose delivery. A brief comprehensive review of new perspective techniques for the cancer detection and treatment in modern diagnostic radiology is presented in this article.