Hematological and neurological impact studies on the exposure to naturally occurring radioactive materials.

Naturally Occurring Radioactive Materials (NORM) contribute to everyone's natural background radiation dose. The technologically advanced activities of the gas and oil sectors produce considerable amounts of radioactive materials as industrial by-products or waste products. The goal of the current study is to estimate the danger of long-term liability to Technologically Enhanced Naturally Occurring Radioactive Materials (TE-NORM) on blood indices, neurotransmitters, oxidative stress markers, and ß-amyloid in the cerebral cortex of rats' brains. Twenty adult male albino rats were divided into two equal groups (n = 10): control and irradiated. Irradiated rats were exposed to a total dose of 0.016 Gy of TE-NORM as a whole-body chronic exposure over a period of two months. It should be ''The results showed no significant changes in RBC count, Hb concentration, hematocrit percentage (HCT%), and Mean Corpuscular Hemoglobin Concentration (MCHC). However, there was a significant increase in the Mean Corpuscular Volume of RBCs (MCV) and a significant decrease in cell distribution width (RDW%) compared to the control. Alteration in neurotransmitters is noticeable by a significant increase in glutamic acid and significant decreases in serotonin and dopamine. Increased lipid peroxidation, decreased glutathione content, superoxide dismutase, catalase, and glutathione peroxidase activities indicating oxidative stress were accompanied by increased ß-amyloid in the cerebral cortex of rats' brains. The findings of the present study showed that chronic radiation liability has some harmful effects, that may predict the risks of future health problems in occupational radiation exposure in the oil industries. Therefore, the control of exposure and application of sample dosimetry is recommended for health and safety.

Correlation of texture feature analysis with bone marrow infiltration in initial staging of patients with lymphoma using 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography combined with computed tomography.

PURPOSE: To explore whether radiomic features of fluorine-18-fluorodeoxyglucose (18F-FDG) positron emission tomo-graphy-computed tomography (PET/CT) has association with bone marrow infiltration (BMI) in comparison to other conventional PET metrics. MATERIAL AND METHODS: Forty-four patients (with pathologically proven lymphoma disease) underwent staging 18F-FDG PET/CT scan. Primary tumour was semi-automatically or manually segmented with a threshold standardised uptake value (SUV) of 3. A total of 73 features were extracted from eight different textures. Spearman correlation was used to test the correlation of features with conventional quantitative metrics such as SUV, metabolic tumour volume, and total lesion glycolysis. Specificity and sensitivity (including 95% confidence intervals [CI]) for each of the studied parameters were derived using receiver operative characteristic (ROC) curves. Univariate and multivariate analyses were used to identify independent predictors associated with BMI. RESULTS: Correlation between conventional PET metrics and features ranged between 0.50 and 0.97 for positive correlation (33 significant association features) and ranged from -0.52 to -0.97 for inverse correlation (three significant association features) for both strong and moderate correlations. Analysis of ROC curves showed that high-intensity long-run emphasis 4 bin, high-intensity large zone emphasis 64 bin, long-run emphasis (LRE) 64 bin, large-zone emphasis 64 bin, max spectrum 8 bin, busyness 64 bin, and code similarity 32 and 64 bin were significant discriminators of BMI among other features (area under curve > 0.682, p < 0.05). Univariate analyses of texture features showed that code similarity and long-run emphasis (both 64 bin) were significant predictors of bone marrow involvement. Multivariate analyses revealed that LRE (64 bin, p = 0.031) with an odds ratio of 1.022 and 95% CI of (1.002-1.043) were independent variables for bone marrow involvement. CONCLUSIONS: 18F-FDG PET/CT radiomic features are synergistic to visual assessment of BMI in patients diagnosed with lymphoma using 18F-FDG PET/CT. Further assessment of long-run emphasis is highly warranted.

Pergascript orange-based polymeric solution as a dosimeter for radiotherapy dosimetric validation.

A radiation colour former amino fluoran dye, Pergascript Orange (PGO), in a polyvinyl butyral solution containing a colour developer, hexachloroethane (HCE), was prepared and investigated for radiotherapy dosimetry of 60Co, 6 MV and 15 MV photons. PGO, a colourless dye, reacts with the acid produced upon radiation exposure of HCE, enabling the lactone ring to open and the orange colour of PGO to develop. The ring opening of PGO was confirmed by the appearance of a broad peak of OH- at 3360 cm-1, CO carboxylic peak at 1763 cm-1, and an iminium group peak at 1640 cm-1. The dose response of all prepared compositions was linear in the dose range of 1-20 Gy. Increasing HCE in the dosimeter matrix from 63 mM to 106 mM enhanced the radiation sensitivity by ≈58%. The radiation sensitivity of PGO-PVB (PGO-P) dosimeter is comparable with Fricke gel and higher than N-(Isobutoxymethyl) acrylamide polymer gel dosimeters. The experimental results reveal an energy-independent response (≈1.2% variation at 1σ) in the studied range of radiotherapy beam quality from 60Co beams to the beams from Linacs with a maximum energy of 15 MeV. Based on the theoretical study, this dosimeter is water equivalent from 80 keV to 10 MeV. The overall uncertainty was found to be 4.5% at the 95% confidence level, indicating the possibility of using PGO-P dosimeter in conventional radiotherapy dose verification.