Geoffrey D. Hugo

Assistant Professor

Division of Medical Physics

Department of Radiation Oncology

Virginia Commonwealth University


P.O. Box 980058

401 College St.

Richmond, VA  23229

  1. (804)628 7780

Email

Research Interests


Motion Management


Radiation therapy is a potent method for treating many types of cancer, due to the ability to geometrically target a solid tumor and the relative sensitivity of cancer cells to high energy x-rays compared to most types of normal tissue.  However, normal tissue is still damaged by direct irradiation.  One of the major goals of the radiotherapy community is to develop methods to reduce irradiation of the normal tissue surrounding the cancer cells while insuring continuous irradiation of the tumor.  For many types of cancer, internal motion of the anatomy, tumor, or both limits our ability to precisely and accurately target the tumor with a beam of radiation.  In lung cancer therapy, the tumor and normal lung tissue are usually moving periodically due to the patient’s breathing.


A major focus of my research is to develop methods to manage this respiration effect in both the delivery of the radiation therapy and also in the pre-treatment planning process.  One current approach is for the patient to perform an assisted breath hold during delivery to reduce the instantaneous motion of the tumor.  A lingering problem with this approach is that lung cancer patients generally have poor lung function due to the cancer or comorbidities such as emphysema, for example.  We are currently investigating methods in my group to improve the ease of use of this approach for patients, and to improve the stability and applicability of the breath hold process.


Image Guided Adaptive Radiotherapy


Image guided radiotherapy is a technique that uses onboard imaging (systems that can acquire an image of the patient anatomy in the radiotherapy treatment position or during the actual treatment) to correct for variations between the planned position of the tumor and the position of the tumor on the day of treatment.  Mainly, the current systems adjust for these variations by shifting the patient position in relation to the radiation beam, or by shifting the beam.  Adaptive radiotherapy is the process of using the imaging information to adapt the plan to these type of changes in patient position.  Adaptive techniques have also been used to adjust for variations in patient anatomy that may occur during a long radiotherapy course, which can last for several months.  My group is investigating the interplay between various motion management strategies and adaptive replanning.


4D Imaging


Several techniques have been developed or adapted from diagnostic radiology in the past decade to provide a ‘4D’ image of the patient anatomy, including respiration correlated CT and respiration correlated cone beam CT.  These technique rely on a model of patient respiration that may not apply for all patients.  We are investigating methods to improve the underlying models and to improve the imaging techniques so that more robust or appropriate models may be incorporated.


Research Funding


Current


NIH P01 CA116602  Image Guided Adaptive Radiation Therapy

PI: J. Williamson

Co-Investigator

Oct 2010 - present


Previous


NIH R01 CA116249  Image Guided Integrated Active Breath Hold Radiotherapy

Principal Investigator

June 2006 - May 2010


Technology Research Agreement  Elekta, Ltd.

Image Guided Adaptive Radiotherapy with Elekta Synergy

Co-Investigator (PI: D. Yan)

December 2006 - May 2008