TÍTULO: Radiation therapy is expensive and sometimes not accessible – how can more patients be helped? (coloquio en inglés) 

EXPOSITORA: Magdalena Bazalova-Carter, Profesora Asociada e Investigadora en Física Médica de la Universidad de Victoria (Columbia Británica, Canadá)

FECHA Y HORA: Viernes 21 de octubre de 2022, 14:30 hs

LUGAR Y E-LUGAR:

Salón de Actos del Instituto Balseiro (con aforo) Av. Bustillo km 9,5, San Carlos de Bariloche.

El evento será transmitido en vivo por el canal de YouTube "Instituto Balseiro Coloquios": https://bit.ly/balseirocoloquios

RESUMEN:

Radiation therapy is alongside surgery and chemotherapy is one the main forms of cancer treatment. The goal of radiotherapy is to kill cancer cells while sparing normal tissues. Thanks to the latest technological developments, we can now treat tumors with a millimeter accuracy under image guidance to accurately irradiate the tumor. Unfortunately, the current state-of-the-art radiotherapy machines are expensive to purchase and to operate. As a result, patients of many countries in the world do not have sufficient access to radiotherapy and succumb to the disease. In this talk, I will describe the entire process of radiation therapy. I will discuss the disparity of its access and introduce a project on low-cost radiotherapy delivered with kilovoltage x-ray beams that we have been working on in the last decade. I will mention the benefits and drawbacks of our novel low-cost device for radiotherapy of cancer.

MINI BIO DE LA EXPOSITORA:

MAGDALENA BAZALOVA-CARTER is an Associate Professor and Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in Medical Physics in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, Canada. She received her PhD degree at McGill University and postdoctoral training at Stanford University. Her current research interests include Monte Carlo simulations and experiments of x-ray fluorescence and photon-counting CT imaging, small animal radiotherapy and FLASH radiotherapy. She is the recipient of the 2018 John S. Laughlin Young Scientist Award awarded by the American Association of Physicists in Medicine and a Deputy Editor for Medical Physics.