We present the development and testing of a semi-automated tool to support the diagnosis of left ventricle (LV) dysfunctions from cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR). CMR short-axis images of the LVs were obtained in 15 patients and processed to detect endocardial and epicardial contours and compute volume, mass and regional wall motion (WM). Results were compared with those obtained from manual t...

Intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) for total body irradiation (TBI) is practiced in several centers using the TomoTherapy System. In this context the planning target volume (PTV) is the entire body including the skin. A safety margin in the air surrounding the body should be added to take into account setup errors. But using inverse planning, over-fluence peak could be generated in th...

The usefulness of modern day haptics equipment for virtual simulations of actual maintenance actions is examined. In an effort to categorize which areas haptic simulations may be useful, we have developed a taxonomy for haptic actions. This classification has two major dimensions: the general type of action performed and the type of force or torque required. Building upon this taxonomy, we sele...

A fast algorithm is constructed to facilitate dose calculation for a large number of randomly sampled treatment scenarios, each representing a possible realisation of a full treatment with geometric, fraction specific displacements for an arbitrary number of fractions. The algorithm is applied to construct a dose volume coverage probability map (DVCM) based on dose calculated for several hundre...

A commercially available open MRI unit is under routine use for radiation therapy simulation. The effects of a gradient distortion correction (GDC) program used to post process the images were assessed by comparison with the known geometry of a phantom. The GDC reduced the magnitude of the distortions at the periphery of the axial images from 12 mm to 2 mm horizontally along the central axis an...

BACKGROUND Hepatocellular carcinoma is a primary tumor of the liver and involves different treatment modalities according to the tumor stage. After local therapies, the tumor evaluation is based on the mRECIST criteria, which involves the measurement of the maximum diameter of the viable lesion. This paper describes a computed methodology to measure through the contrasted area of the lesions th...

The performance of a recently introduced spectral computed tomography system based on a dual-layer detector has been investigated. A semi-anthropomorphic abdomen phantom for CT performance evaluation was imaged on the dual-layer spectral CT at different radiation exposure levels (CTDIvol of 10 mGy, 20 mGy and 30 mGy). The phantom was equipped with specific low-contrast and tissue-equivalent ins...

AIM To evaluate the effectiveness of haptic virtual reality (VR) simulator training using microcomputed tomography (micro-CT) tooth models on minimizing procedural errors in endodontic access preparation. METHODOLOGY Fourth year dental students underwent a pre-training assessment of access cavity preparation on an extracted maxillary molar tooth mounted on a phantom head. Students were then r...