SPIE SHORT COURSE: OPTICAL GUIDANCE IN SURGERY & RADIATION THERAPY

SPIE Short Course:

Optical Guidance in Surgery & Radiation Therapy 

Professor Brian Pogue

Engineering Science & Medical Physics, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, USA 

Optical and x-ray radiation source technologies are the two central pillars for human medical imaging and therapy, and interventional guidance in treatment is guided by both of them. The strengths of x-rays are deep tissue penetration, effective cytotoxicity, and the ability to image with robust projection and computed-tomography methods. The major limitations of x-ray use are the lack of molecular specificity and the carcinogenic risk. In comparison, optical interactions with tissue are strongly scatter dominated, leading to limited tissue penetration, making imaging and therapy largely restricted to superficial or endoscopically directed tissues.  In comparison, optical photon energies are comparable with molecular energy levels, thereby providing the strength of intrinsic molecular specificity. Additionally, optical technologies are highly advanced and diversified, being ubiquitously used throughout medicine as the single largest technology sector. 

This short course will review the roles of guidance and the technologies used to ensure that therapy is delivered accurately.  The parts of course are:

• 1. Optics & X-rays in medicine – review of strengths, limitations and synergies
• 2. Optical surgical guidance in medicine – visualization, structures, perfusion, metabolism & immunology
• 3. Optical guidance in radiation therapy – positioning, surface maps, dosimetry, verification & quality audit 

2. Learning objectives
2. This course will provide the technical participants with a basic understanding of the uses of x-rays and optical systems in medicine.
2. The course will provide expert research guidance on:
3. surgical guidance systems and what is possible;
4. molecular imaging capabilities and emerging molecular tracers for human use;
5. radiotherapy techniques and technologies used;
6. camera systems and spectroscopic techniques for sampling these signals;
7. measurement tools for dose and molecular sensing.

Intended audience

• Undergraduate, Masters, and PhD students, post-doctoral trainees and research scientists in physical sciences and engineering with an interest in biomedical device translation.

2. Course level

• Intermediate

1. Short Course duration
2. Half a day (two 1 hour lectures plus breaks)

• Instructor
• Brian W. Pogue, Ph.D. is the MacLean Professor of Engineering at Dartmouth in Hanover, New Hampshire USA, as well as Adjunct Professor of Surgery in the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth. He has a Ph.D. in Medical/Nuclear Physics from McMaster University, in Canada, and was a research fellow at the Wellman Center for Photomedicine at the Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School. At Dartmouth since 1996, he works in the area of Optics in Medicine, with a focus on novel imaging systems for characterizing cancer and tracking responses to therapy. He was Dean of Graduate Studies at Dartmouth from 2008-2012, and is now Director of MS and PhD Programs in Engineering Science & Medical Physics at Dartmouth. He has published over 300 peer-reviewed papers and 400 conference papers in the areas of monitoring cancer therapy with optical signals, in surgery, medicine, medical oncology, and radiotherapy. His research is funded by the National Cancer Institute through a Program Project grant as well as several individual R01 grants and he co-directs a program project P01 grant. He is currently an editorial board member for Physics in Medicine & Biology, Medical Physics, and Breast Cancer Research, and is the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Biomedical Optics. He is an elected fellow of the Optical Society of America (OSA) and the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineers (AIMBE). He recently founded the start up company DoseOptics LLC, making the world's first camera to image radiotherapy dose delivery as it happens.
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