Magister en Física Médica

Facultad de Física

Información sobre

Inicio Seminarios Modeling of the vascular architecture and oxygen distribution in tumors and comparison with experimental findings

Modeling of the vascular architecture and oxygen distribution in tumors and comparison with experimental findings

Alexander Neuholz (1,2,3)

  1. German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ), Department of Medical Physics in Radiation Oncology (E040), Heidelberg, Deutschland
  2. Heidelberg Institute for Radiation Oncology (HIRO), National Center for Radiation Research in Oncology (NCRO), Heidelberg, Deutschland
  3. Heidelberg University, Faculty of Physics and Astronomy, Heidelberg, Deutschland


Tumor tissue shows a more heterogeneous vessel distribution compared to normal tissue. This affects the success of radiation therapy since the chaotic vascular architecture leads to oxygen deficient (hypoxic) areas that show a higher resistance to radiotherapy. To characterize hypoxic areas, it is not sufficient to just measure the vascular fraction (amount of vessels) in the tumor tissue, e.g. via positron emission spectroscopy (PET). Instead information on the vessel architecture in the micrometer domain is needed as well and can't be displayed by (clinical) imaging devices. Thus, we rely mainly on microscopic images that are acquired in 3D by single plane illumination microscopy (SPIM).

These 3D images are used as input for simulations with an in-house developed tumor oxygenation model (TOM). The TOM is voxel-based and can therefore be adapted to the needed resolution (usually in the range of the micro vessel radius) to solve the diffusion equation with the particle strength exchange method. With the experimental findings and simulated oxygen distribution we want to adapt an in-house developed tumor response model (TRM) to improve the prediction of the radiation response of hypoxic tumors.

Auditorio JK, December 5, 15:30.