Biography
Since starting at The Ottawa Hospital Cancer Centre, my research has focused on medical physics applications within stereotactic ablative radiosurgery. I am interested in the accurately modelling detector response in complex composite clinical fields. Evaluating the sensitivity of the delivered dose to clinically realistic uncertainties present in a patient treatment for complex delivery systems such as volumetric modulated arc therapy and the CyberKnife robotic radiosurgery system is also a research focus. These uncertainties include: propagation of uncorrected detector response into the data used to model the radiation beam in the planning system; errors in the position of the fields (e.g., incorrect calibration of the position and speed of multileaf collimators, jaws and gantry); and changes in the patient anatomy due to tumour shrinkage, growth, and tumour movement during the respiratory cycle. Recently, the Ottawa Hospital has purchased a GammaPod breast radiotherapy system and a dedicated radiation oncology MRI-simulation suite. The GammaPod uses a rotating array of 36 cobalt-60 sources with a dynamically translating couch to deliver accelerated partial breast irradiation to patients in the prone position. MR-based treatment planning would be very useful for accurate delineation of target tissues for this system. Projects associated with this goal include: prototyping patient immobilization which is compatible with MR and treatment on the GammaPod unit; implementation and validation of MR-based dose calculation planning using Monte Carlo models and phantom measurements. We are also interested in investigating in-room image guidance options to verify patient position at the time of treatment for this system.
My publication list can be accessed on my Google Scholar page.