title: Towards conformal light delivery using tailored cylindrical diffusers: attainable light dose distributions.
abstract: Interstitial light delivery for therapeutic applications requires the use of fibre-based light diffusers. Such diffusers are presently manufactured to emit with a flat longitudinal power profile. Recently, diffusers with tailored longitudinal emission profiles have become available opening an avenue to improve conformal light delivery. This paper explores the ability of tailored diffusers to improve light dose confinement to the target volume. A formalism to calculate the light dose from an arbitrary source distribution is presented based on the convolution with an appropriate point source function. By choosing a source distribution corresponding to a cylindrical diffuser emitting with a sinusoidal profile, the set of attainable light dose distributions is characterized via a relationship between the diffuser's spatial frequency, the radial distance and the amplitude of the isodose contour.
authors.affiliation: Department of Medical Biophysics, University of Toronto, 610 University Avenue, Toronto, ON M5G 2M9, Canada.
authors.forename: Augusto
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Rendon
authors.forename: Robert
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Weersink
authors.forename: Lothar
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Lilge
mesh_terms: D055592:Biophysical Phenomena; D001703:Biophysics; D006801:Humans; D009010:Monte Carlo Method; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000188:drug therapy; D010778:Photochemotherapy / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*