Grant: Doctoral: Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarships

Cancer is currently the second most fatal chronic disease after cardiovascular disease, and is the leading cause of early death in Canada. It has been estimated that there will be 171,000 new cases of cancer and 75,300 deaths resulting from cancer in Canada in 2009. Prostate cancer is one of the three cancers in majority of new cases in men. Approximately 40% of cancer patients receive radiotherapy treatment which requires computed tomography (CT) imaging for diagnostic and treatment planning purposes. The diagnosis/treatment of between 1-4% of patients is adversely affected due to metal implants including hip prosthetics and dental fillings for prostate and head & neck cancer respectively. Metal implants cause artifacts in patient images obtained with conventional diagnostic CT scanners that hinder in proper tumor identification and accurate dose calculation for radiotherapy treatment planning. As a result, targeted tumor volume can be missed and vital surrounding tissues can be damaged resulting in poor treatment outcome. Although commercial megavoltage (MV) CT images are inferior in soft tissue and tumor visualization, previous research in our group has developed new detector system for MVCT to improve soft tissue visualization. The aided benefit of MV CT imaging is a striking reduction in metal artifacts. I am developing new strategies in imaging and image processing technique(s) that are expected to completely remove metal artifacts from MVCT images. Artifact free MVCT images will provide prior information for more advanced image processing techniques for diagnostic CT images such that the complementary information from two imaging systems will be more useful for radiotherapy treatment planning. With the application of new techniques of image reconstruction and the detector system, we hope to get better images. Ultimate use of these images in clinical practice will raise the quality of cancer treatment and quality of life in this population of cancer patients.