Cerebral haemodynamic effects in the human brain during radiation therapy for brain cancer

Abstract

Radiotherapy is already well-established and an effective form of treatment for many cancers, especially for brain tumors. Currently, the clinical efficacy of a treatment, however, can only be established based on clinical or radiological responses observed after a significant period of time following the single irradiations during radiotherapy course. On the other hand, the radiotherapy dose is limited by its toxicity to surrounding healthy tissues. Particularly, radiation to brain tumors may sub-acutely or chronically affect cognition and cause fatigue even with conventional doses. However, there is currently no on-line and safe method to monitor the effects of radiation to the brain during the irradiation. In our project, we aim to develop an on-line method to monitor effects in brain tissue that correlate with the radiation dose in radiotherapy. In this case study, we use functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) and study possible temporal effects in cerebral haemodynamics during irradiations of whole-brain radiotherapy (WBRT). fNIRS is safe for the patient, it can be used noninvasively and also in demanding environments, such as in radiotherapy treatment rooms during irradiation, and thus could be in future potential technique to be utilized for monitoring tailored radiotherapy.

A method to detect thermal damage in bovine liver utilising diffuse reflectance spectroscopy

“…Certain drug therapies can also result in irreversible cell injury and tissue necrosis [20]. Effective radiotherapy does result in irreversible cell injury in cancer cells, thus detection of necrosis is of high interest [36,37]. Sometimes this may result in non-representative sampling [51].…”

“…metabolic and morphological changes in tissues as presented by Dremin et al [14]. A single measurement can be also performed within sub-second range, allowing to track even subtle changes, that may occur quickly, for instance during radiation therapy [12,37]. Over past years 100…”

Cerebral tissue oxygenation response to brain irradiation measured during clinical radiotherapy

“…Our first initial study was presented in 2020 by Myllylä et al. 8 This paper studied further characteristic temporal alterations in cerebral haemodynamics based on 34 patient online measurements.…”

“…At present, more than 50 patients online fNIRS measurements have been performed in Oulu University Hospital, Finland, indicating that the NIRS technique is feasible for clinical patient monitoring in radiotherapy. Our first initial study was presented in 2020 by Myllylä et al 8 . This paper studied further characteristic temporal alterations in cerebral haemodynamics based on 34 patient online measurements.…”