<p>Cerebral radiation necrosis as a
consequence of radiation therapy is often observed in patients several months
to years after treatment. Complications include painful headaches, seizures,
and in the worst-case death. Radiation necrosis is an irreversible condition
with the options available to manage it all having noticeable downsides. As
such, there is a critical need for better ways of either preventing the onset
of necrosis and/or managing its symptoms. As radiation necrosis cannot be
induced in humans for ethical reasons, a mouse model that mirrors the features
of radiation necrosis observed in patients would allow for new techniques to be
tested before being used in human clinical trials. This thesis will explain how
our lab designed a murine model of cerebral radiation necrosis that uses a
320 keV cabinet irradiator to produce radiation necrosis and MRI and histology
to evaluate the development of radiation necrosis at multiple time points.</p><p><br></p>
<p> </p>
<p>Our model required the development
of a mouse positioning apparatus that could be used in the cabinet irradiator
used as well as the machining of lead shields so that focal semi-hemispheric
irradiations could be conducted with other critical structures spared. The MRI
scans used as well as the algorithm used to draw radiation necrosis lesions
were based off what has been used in previous Gamma Knife models of radiation
necrosis. Our initial work showed that since the cabinet irradiator has a
relatively flat dose distribution unlike the Gamma Knife, the radiation lesion
volumes produced in the former either plateaued or decreased, unlike in the
case of the latter where lesion volumes tended to decrease over time. Further
work analyzed the effects of fractionation and found minimal sparing using four
different fractionation schemes. The effects of strain and sex on the
development of radiation necrosis were also analyzed, with strain being found
to be a statistically significant parameter while sex was not. Future research
should focus on testing the effects of new drugs and techniques for better
dealing with radiation necrosis.<b></b></p>
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:purdue.edu/oai:figshare.com:article/12118956 |
| Date | 17 April 2020 |
| Creators | Andrew J. Boria (8703303) |
| Source Sets | Purdue University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text, Thesis |
| Rights | CC BY 4.0 |
| Relation | https://figshare.com/articles/MRI-TRACKABLE_MURINE_MODEL_OF_____CEREBRAL_RADIATION_NECROSIS/12118956 |
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