[Adjuvant contact radiotherapy for conjunctival malignancies: Preliminary results of a series of 14 patients treated with the Papillon 50 machine]. / Radiothérapie de contact adjuvante des tumeurs malignes de la conjonctive : résultats préliminaires d'une série de 14 patients traités avec l'appareil Papillon 50.

PURPOSE: To evaluate the results of an adjuvant contact irradiation using 50kV photons after resection of conjunctival malignancies. MATERIALS AND METHOD: From 2012 to 2014, 14 patients (male: nine; female: five) have been treated by contact irradiation after resection of a malignant tumor of the conjunctiva (melanoma: five patients; malignant fibrous histiocytoma: one patient; carcinoma: eight patients) The treatment was performed using the Papillon 50 machine (Ariane). Three to four sessions were delivered, each giving a dose of 10Gy. The median follow-up in survivors was 33 months. RESULTS: The tolerance was good. A cataract was seen in one patient, and a moderate eye dryness in one. There was no corneal ulcer. One patient died of intercurrent disease. One patient with carcinoma recurred locally. CONCLUSION: Adjuvant contact radiotherapy provides a good local control after resection of conjunctival malignancies (melanoma, malignant histiocytofibroma, carcinoma). Thanks to its precision, this technique is well tolerated with a low rate of complications. Furthermore, it is delivered on an ambulatory basis.

GATE: a simulation toolkit for PET and SPECT.

Monte Carlo simulation is an essential tool in emission tomography that can assist in the design of new medical imaging devices, the optimization of acquisition protocols and the development or assessment of image reconstruction algorithms and correction techniques. GATE, the Geant4 Application for Tomographic Emission, encapsulates the Geant4 libraries to achieve a modular, versatile, scripted simulation toolkit adapted to the field of nuclear medicine. In particular, GATE allows the description of time-dependent phenomena such as source or detector movement, and source decay kinetics. This feature makes it possible to simulate time curves under realistic acquisition conditions and to test dynamic reconstruction algorithms. This paper gives a detailed description of the design and development of GATE by the OpenGATE collaboration, whose continuing objective is to improve, document and validate GATE by simulating commercially available imaging systems for PET and SPECT. Large effort is also invested in the ability and the flexibility to model novel detection systems or systems still under design. A public release of GATE licensed under the GNU Lesser General Public License can be downloaded at http:/www-lphe.epfl.ch/GATE/. Two benchmarks developed for PET and SPECT to test the installation of GATE and to serve as a tutorial for the users are presented. Extensive validation of the GATE simulation platform has been started, comparing simulations and measurements on commercially available acquisition systems. References to those results are listed. The future prospects towards the gridification of GATE and its extension to other domains such as dosimetry are also discussed.