We aim to improve the accuracy of electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR)-based in vivo tooth dosimetry using the relationship between tooth geometry and radiation-induced signals (RIS). A homebuilt EPR spectrometer at L-band frequency of 1.15 GHz originally designed for non-invasive and in vivo measurements of intact teeth was used to measure the RIS of extracted human teeth. Twenty human central incisors were scanned by microCT and irradiated by 220 kVp x-rays. The RISs of the samples were measured by the EPR spectrometer as well as simulated by using the finite element analysis of the electromagnetic field. A linear relationship between simulated RISs and tooth geometric dimensions, such as enamel area, enamel volume, and labial enamel volume, was confirmed. The dose sensitivity was quantified as a slope of the calibration curve (i.e., RIS vs. dose) for each tooth sample. The linear regression of these dose sensitivities was established for each of three tooth geometric dimensions. Based on these findings, a method for the geometry correction was developed by use of expected dose sensitivity of a certain tooth for one of the tooth geometric dimensions. Using upper incisors, the mean absolute deviation (MAD) without correction was 1.48 Gy from an estimated dose of 10 Gy; however, the MAD corrected by enamel area, volume, and labial volume was reduced to 1.04 Gy, 0.77 Gy, and 0.83 Gy, respectively. In general, the method corrected by enamel volume showed the best accuracy in this study. This homebuilt EPR spectrometer for the purpose of non-invasive and in vivo tooth dosimetry was successfully tested for achieving measurements in situ. We demonstrated that the developed correction method could reduce dosimetric uncertainties resulting from the variations in tooth geometric dimensions.

We investigate information flow and Page curves for tripartite systems. We prepare a tripartite system (say, A, B, and C) of a given number of states and calculate information and entropy contents by assuming random states. Initially, every particle was in A (this means a black hole), and as time goes on, particles move to either B (this means Hawking radiation) or C (this means a broadly defined remnant, including a non-local transport of information, the last burst, an interior large volume, or a bubble universe, etc). If the final number of states of the remnant is smaller than that of Hawking radiation, then information will be stored by both the radiation and the mutual information between the radiation and the remnant, while the remnant itself does not contain information. On the other hand, if the final number of states of the remnant is greater than that of Hawking radiation, then the radiation contains negligible information, while the remnant and the mutual information between the radiation and the remnant contain information. Unless the number of states of the remnant is large enough compared to the entropy of the black hole, Hawking radiation must contain information; and we meet the menace of black hole complementarity again. Therefore, this contrasts the tension between various assumptions and candidates of the resolution of the information loss problem.

As part of a homebuilt continuous wave electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectrometer operating at 1.2 GHz, a magnet system for in vivo tooth dosimetry was developed. The magnet was designed by adopting NdFeB permanent magnet (PM) for the main magnetic field generation. For each pole of the magnet, 32 cylindrical PMs were arranged in 2 axially aligned ring arrays. The pole gap was 18 cm, which was wide enough for a human head breadth. The measured magnetic field was compared with the magnetic field distribution calculated in a finite element method (FEM) simulation. EPR spectra of intact human teeth irradiated 5 and 30 Gy were measured for the performance test with the developed magnet system and spectrometer. The measured mean magnetic flux density was estimated to be 44.45 mT with homogeneity of 1,600 ppm in a 2 cm diameter of the spherical volume of the XY plane, which was comparable to the FEM simulation results. The sweep coefficient of the magnetic field sweep coil was 0.35 mT per Ampere in both the measurement and FEM simulation. With ±9 A current, the sweep range was 5.7 mT, which was sufficiently wide to measure the tooth radiation-induced signal (RIS) and reference material. The peak-to-peak amplitude of the measured modulation field was 0.38 mT at the center of the magnet. With the developed magnet fully integrated into an EPR system, the EPR spectra of 5 and 30 Gy irradiated teeth were successfully acquired. The developed magnet system showed sufficiently acceptable performance in terms of magnetic flux density and homogeneity. The EPR spectrum of tooth RIS could be measured ex vivo. The RIS of 5 and 30 Gy irradiated teeth was clearly distinguishable from intact human teeth.

We aim to develop a dose assessment method compensating for quality factors (Q factor) observed during in vivo EPR tooth dosimetry. A pseudo-in-vivo phantom made of tissue-equivalent material was equipped with one each of four extracted human central incisors. A range of Q factors was measured at tooth-depths of −2, 0, and 2 mm in the pseudo-in-vivo phantom. In addition, in vivo Q factors were measured from nine human volunteers. For the dose-response data, the above four sample teeth were irradiated at 0, 1, 2, 5, and 10 Gy, and the radiation-induced signals were measured at the same tooth-depths using an in vivo EPR tooth dosimetry system. To validate the method, the signals of two post-radiotherapy patients and three unirradiated volunteers were measured using the same system. The interquartile range of the Q factors measured in the pseudo-in-vivo phantom covered that observed from the human volunteers, which implied that the phantom represented the Q factor distribution of in vivo conditions. The dosimetric sensitivities and background signals were decreased as increasing the tooth-depth in the phantom due to the decrease in Q factors. By compensating for Q factors, the diverged dose-response data due to various Q factors were converged to improve the dosimetric accuracy in terms of the standard error of inverse prediction (SEIP). The Q factors of patient 1 and patient 2 were 98 and 64, respectively, while the three volunteers were 100, 92, and 99. The assessed doses of patient 1 and patient 2 were 2.73 and 12.53 Gy, respectively, while expecting 4.43 and 13.29 Gy, respectively. The assessed doses of the unirradiated volunteers were 0.53, 0.50, and − 0.22 Gy. We demonstrated that the suggested Q factor compensation could mitigate the uncertainty induced by the variation of Q factors.

No abstract