A Direction for Clinical Radiation Pathology

Treatment of Radiation Injury

“…The concept of a minimal and maximal tissue tolerance dose (TD) was introduced and applied to the whole or partial organ volume that received a uniform dose of external beam radiation at as high as > 1 Gy/min, with daily fractions of 1.8-2 Gy. 8 Data were collected of the predicted TD, which was related to a 5% rate of complications within 5 years (TD 5/5 ) of the maximum TD, TD 50/5 , which caused a 50% complication rate by 5 years. Depending on the tissue, a 20-Gy single-fraction dose could be biologically comparable to 50 Gy, which is typical for tumor cells, and 10 Gy, which includes some normal tissue.…”

Patterns and Prevalence of Post-Radiation Changes in Head & Neck Cancer Detected by 18F-FDG PET/CT

“…Patients with head and neck irradiation usually had alterations in the salivary glands and in the dental structure, which predisposes to progressive periodontal attachment loss, rampant caries and fungal and bacterial infections [18]. These areas of infection are FDG avid and may lead to false positive results in FDG PET/CT scan.…”

Development of a Porcine Skin Injury Model and Characterization of Dose-dependent Response to High-dose Radiation

“…Erythema demarcating the radiation field begins in the second or third week of fractionated radiation (10-20 Gy) and becomes progressively more evident by the third and fourth weeks of treatment [10]. If the total dose to the skin does not exceed 30 Gy, the dry desquamation phase will typically occur in the fourth or fifth week of radiation [14]. If the total delivered dose is >40 Gy, the erythema phase may be followed by the moist desquamation phase, which has similar histologic features to a second-degree burn [10].…”