An easier, safer, and more accurate treatment for pancreatic cancer

(a) A single axial slice of the pancreas from the pre-treatment CT scans is overlaid with computed contours of light fluence levels around the fiber location. This was simulated using blood content information for tissue absorption from contrast CT. (b) A volume rendering of the blood vessels around the pancreas overlaid with the light dose map in the fiber location, in the same patient. Please see supplementary material at stacks.iop.org/PMB/59/1911/mmedia. Credit: NCCC

Using CT scans with contrast enhancement, Dartmouth researchers measured treatment response to pancreatic cancer photodynamic therapy (PDT) according to a paper published in Physics in Medicine and Biology.

The research team at Dartmouth set out to reduce the imaging obstacles for PDT, a minimally invasive and nontoxic treatment for cancer. “This study implies that treatment response can be reliably predicted using contrast CT. This would represent a major breakthrough in PDT for pancreas cancer that allows…