For Immediate Release
September 9, 2005

Roswell Park Faculty Present at National Radiotherapy Meetings

BUFFALO, NY – Faculty, staff, and students of the Medical Physics division of the Department of Radiation Medicine recently presented results of their research at the annual meetings of the American Association of Physicists in Medicine (AAPM) and the Radiotherapy Service Engineers Association (RSEA), held jointly in Seattle, Washington.

At the AAPM meeting, Steve de Boer, MS, Assistant Professor, Department of Radiation Medicine, spoke on “A Geometrical Method for Lesion Placement in Functional Radiosurgery.” Co-authors on this work include Robert Plunkett, MD, from the Department of Neurosurgery and Michael Kuettel, MD, Chair, Department of Radiation Medicine. Iris Wang, PhD, Medical Physics Resident, presented data on the “Impact of Ultrasound-Guided Patient Setup on OAR Dose in Conformal Radiation Therapy for Prostate Carcinoma” while Moonseong Oh, MS and George Cernica, MS, described their work on the “Accuracy of Clinical Dose Delivery in IOHDR Brachytherapy” and the “Accuracy of Gamma Knife Stereotactic Localization as a Function of Patient Alignment During Imaging,” respectively. Co-authors for these papers include Robert Fenstermaker, MD, Clinical Chair, Department of Neurosurgery, Wainwright Jaggernauth, MD, Assistant Professor, Department of Radiation Medicine, and Harish Malhotra, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Radiation Medicine.

“The Medical Physics group, in collaboration with faculty from various departments at RPCI, had a strong showing again this year at the AAPM meeting” noted Matthew Podgorsak, PhD, Associate Professor and Chief Medical Physicist in the Department of Radiation Medicine. In addition to the above-mentioned work, the group, consisting of six faculty medical physicists and associated support staff and students, presented five posters describing a wide range of research topics.
Mr. de Boer and Dr. Podgorsak were also invited lecturers at the RSEA meeting. Mr. de Boer spoke on the “Principles and Practice of Gated Radiation Therapy” and Dr. Podgorsak described RPCI’s recent Gamma Knife suite reconfiguration in a talk titled “Anatomy of a Gamma Knife Reload and Relocation.”

The AAPM is a scientific, education and professional organization of more than 5,000 medical physicists concerned with the application of the concepts and methods of physics in the diagnosis and treatment of human disease.

RSEA is an organization of radiotherapy service engineers who perform calibrations, preventative and predictive maintenance on the complex equipment used in radiotherapy, including medical linear accelerators, radiotherapy simulators, teletherapy systems, and other imaging devices.

Roswell Park Cancer Institute, founded in 1898, is the nation’s first cancer research, treatment and education center and is the only National Cancer Institute- designated comprehensive cancer center in Upstate New York. RPCI is a member of the prestigious National Comprehensive Cancer Network, an alliance of the nation’s leading cancer centers. For more information, visit RPCI’s website at www.roswellpark.org, call 1-877-ASK-RPCI or e-mail askrpci@roswellpark.org.

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