

I n t e r n a t i o n a l C o n f e r e n c e o n
Nuclear Medicine &
Radiation Therapy
Journal of Medical Physics and Applied Sciences
ISSN: 2574-285X
O c t o b e r 0 1 - 0 2 , 2 0 1 8
S t o c k h o l m , S w e d e n
Nuclear Medicine & Radiation Therapy 2018
Page 20
Golam Abu Zakaria, J. med phys & appl sci 2018, Volume: 3
DOI: 10.21767/2574-285X-C1-001
Biography
Prof. Dr. G. A. Zakaria studied physics at the University of Hal-
le-Wittenberg in 1978, and post-graduated at the University of
Goettingen and received his Ph. D in medical physics at Heidel-
berg University, Germany.
Prof. Zakaria is currently the chairman of the Department of
Medical Radiation Physics at Gummersbach Teaching Hos-
pital of the University of Cologne and professor of Biomedical
Engineering at the University of Applied Sciences in Koethen.
Furthermore he has been invited as Guest/honorary/adjunct
professor in many institutes or universities in Germany, Italy,
China and Bangladesh. Since January 2018, Dr. Zakaria is nom-
inated as the Accreditation Committee-2 Chair (Radio-Oncolo-
gy Physics) of the International Medical Physics Certification
Board (IMPCB).
GolamAbu.Zakaria@klinikum-oberberg.deNew aspects of medical physics in
radiation oncology and imaging
Golam Abu Zakaria
Klinikum Oberberg-Kreiskrankenhaus Gummersbach
Hospital, Academic Teaching Hospital of the University of
Cologne, Germany
M
edical Physics is the application of physics concepts, theories and methods
to medicine and health care. Medical physicists play a vital and often leading
role for any medical research team. Their activities cover some key areas such as
cancer, heart diseases and mental illnesses. In cancer treatment, they primarily
work on issues involving imaging and radiation oncology. Thus the medical
physicists play a mandatory role in every radiation oncology team. The capability
of controlling the growth of any cancer with radiation dose is always associated
with the unavoidable normal tissue damage. Accordingly, many physical-technical
developments in radiotherapy facilities are aimed to give a maximum radiation
dose to tumour cells and at the same time minimize the dose to the surrounding
normal tissue. For that reason, after the development of the Cobalt 60 (60Co)
irradiation units in the 50 ties medical linear accelerators (linacs) were developed
in the following decades. Advanced linear accelerators, helical tomotherapy and
CyberKnife machines have been developed over the past two decades. Last but
not least, neutrons, protons and even heavier ions have also been applied. At the
same time, treatment calculation and delivery methods have been continuously
improved from conventional multi-beam techniques to tumour shape conformal
methods such as 3D conformal radiotherapy (3DCRT), radio surgery, intensity
modulated radiotherapy (IMRT), image guided radiotherapy (IGRT), stereotactic
body radiation therapy (SBRT) and adaptive radiotherapy (ART). The concentration
of dose to tumour requires precise information on the shape and the anatomical
geometry of the tumour within the body. The techniques providing such pieces
of information in a visible form is summarized by the term of “Imaging”. X-ray
has played a dominant role almost from the time of its discovery in 1895. Up to
now, the use of X-rays has been extended to tomographic imaging with computed
tomography (CT) and other imaging modalities like ultrasound (US), magnetic
resonance imaging (MRI) or positron emission tomography (PET) which have been
developed over the last decades. By their combined use, the required information
level on the clinical tumour target volume for radiotherapy has been tremendously
raised. The physical and technical development of radiation oncology and imaging
are discussed in this talk covering aspects in biology as well.