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Professional Focus

Dr. Faddegon’s research goal is to improve accuracy and precision in radiotherapy through cost-effective solutions to improve the therapeutic ratio. This will allow for more aggressive treatment in sites where side effects, local control, and even metastases are a problem.  The National Institute of Health (NIH) has fully funded Dr. Faddegon's project to help establish Monte Carlo, a highly accurate method of radiation transport, as a critical tool in radiotherapy, including treatment planning. Related projects include adding electrons to intensity-modulated radiotherapy with x-rays, using Monte Carlo methods for dose calculation, and establishing fast means of dose calculation for depth penetration and output calculation using the accurate beam models developed for the NIH project. Dr. Faddegon is also working to establish image-guided radiotherapy with portal imaging for more precise targeting of tumors and avoidance of critical structures.
 
Dr. Faddegon’s clinical responsibility is physics support of linear accelerators (linacs). This includes management, installation, commissioning, maintenance and quality assurance (QA), along with supervision of engineers and physicists. At UCSF, Dr. Faddegon commissioned Total Body Irradiation on several linacs, developing the means to treat the whole body over a short distance (3 meters). He also developed new targets to resolve a water leakage problem, implemented high precision graticules for patient localization, commissioned a missing tissue compensator system, and determined the means to detect and correct defective circuitry he discovered in treatments using virtual wedges. He is currently working on implementing a new, more accurate and efficient system for electron output calculation. He routinely consults for Intraoperative Radiotherapy, special procedures, electron treatment, and dose calculation in complex treatments including those where dose delivery is influenced by air cavities, bone, and prosthesis.

Education

Professional Experience

Awards & Honors

Recent Significant Publications

Shin J, Perl J, Schümann J, Paganetti H, Faddegon BA., A modular method to handle multiple time-dependent quantities in Monte Carlo simulations. Phys Med Biol. 2012 Jun 7;57(11):3295-308.

Schreiber EC, Sawkey DL, Faddegon BA., Sensitivity analysis of an asymmetric Monte Carlo beam model of a Siemens Primus accelerator. J Appl Clin Med Phys. 2012 Mar 8;13(2):3402.

O'Shea TP, Ge Y, Foley MJ, Faddegon BA., Characterization of an extendable multi-leaf collimator for clinical electron beams. Phys Med Biol. 2011 Dec 7;56(23):7621-38.

Ge Y, Faddegon BA., Study of intensity-modulated photon-electron radiation therapy using digital phantoms. Phys Med Biol. 2011 Oct 21;56(20):6693-708.

O'Shea TP, Foley MJ, Faddegon BA., Accounting for the fringe magnetic field from the bending magnet in a Monte Carlo accelerator treatment head simulation. Med Phys. 2011 Jun;38(6):3260-9.

Nakamura JL, Phong C, Pinarbasi E, Kogan SC, Vandenberg S, Horvai AE, Faddegon BA, Fiedler D, Shokat K, Houseman BT, Chao R, Pieper RO, Shannon K., Dose-dependent effects of focal fractionated irradiation on secondary malignant neoplasms in Nf1 mutant mice. Cancer Res. 2011 Jan 1;71(1):106-15.

Halabi T, Faddegon B., Practical quantitative measurement of graticule misalignment relative to collimator axis of rotation. J Appl Clin Med Phys. 2010 Aug 15;11(4):3318.

O'Shea TP, Sawkey DL, Foley MJ, Faddegon BA., Monte Carlo commissioning of clinical electron beams using large field measurements. Phys Med Biol. 2010 Jul 21;55(14):4083-105.

Faddegon BA, Aubin M, Bani-Hashemi A, Gangadharan B, Gottschalk AR, Morin O, Sawkey D, Wu V, Yom SS., Comparison of patient megavoltage cone beam CT images acquired with an unflattened beam from a carbon target and a flattened treatment beam. Med Phys. 2010 Apr;37(4):1737-41.

Fragoso M, Kawrakow I, Faddegon BA, Solberg TD, Chetty IJ., Fast, accurate photon beam accelerator modeling using BEAMnrc: a systematic investigation of efficiency enhancing methods and cross-section data. Med Phys. 2009 Dec;36(12):5451-66.

Faddegon BA, Sawkey D, O'Shea T, McEwen M, Ross C., Treatment head disassembly to improve the accuracy of large electron field simulation. Med Phys. 2009 Oct;36(10):4577-91.

Faddegon BA, Kawrakow I, Kubyshin Y, Perl J, Sempau J, Urban L., The accuracy of EGSnrc, Geant4 and PENELOPE Monte Carlo systems for the simulation of electron scatter in external beam radiotherapy. Phys Med Biol. 2009 Oct 21;54(20):6151-63.

Chen J, Irion J, Faddegon BA., Validation of the final aperture superposition technique to calculate electron output factors and depth dose curves. Med Phys. 2009 Aug;36(8):3397-405.

Beltran C, Lukose R, Gangadharan B, Bani-Hashemi A, Faddegon BA., Image quality & dosimetric property of an investigational imaging beam line MV-CBCT. J Appl Clin Med Phys. 2009 Jun 17;10(3):3023.

V Wu, M Aubin, A Bani-Hashemi, B Gangadharan, AR Gottschalk, O Morin, SS Yom, and B Faddegon. High quality low dose con beam CT images of patents with a megavoltage imaging beam line. Accepted by International Journal of Radiation Oncology*Biology*Physics, 2009.

B A Faddegon, V Wu , J Pouliot , B Gangadharan , and A B-Hashemi. Low Dose Megavoltage Cone Beam CT with an Unflattened 4 MV Beam From a Carbon Target, Accepted by Med. Phys., October, 2008

B A Faddegon, M Asai, J Perl, C Ross, J Sempau, J Tinslay, and F Salvat. Benchmarking of Monte Carlo simulation of bremsstrahlung from thick targets at radiotherapy energies, Accepted by Med. Phys., Aug, (2008).

C Ross, M McEwen , A McDonald , C Cojocaru , B Faddegon. Measurement of multiple scattering of 13 and 20 MeV electrons by thin foils, Accepted by Med. Phys., July, (2008).

R W J Janssen, B A Faddegon and W J F Dries. Prototyping a large field size IORT applicator for a mobile linear accelerator, Phys. Med. Biol. 53:2089-2102, (2008).

B A Faddegon, J Perl and M Asai. Monte Carlo simulation of large electron fields, Phys. Med. Biol. 53:1497-1510, 2008. August, (2007).

IJ Chetty B Curran, JE Cygler, JJ DeMarco, G Ezzell, BA Faddegon, I Kawrakow, PJ Keall, H Liu, C Ma, DWO Rogers, J Seuntjens, D Sheikh-Bagheri, Jeffrey, V Siebers. Report of the AAPM Task Group No. 105: Issues associated with clinical implementation of Monte Carlo-based photon and electron external beam treatment planning, Med. Phys. 34:4818-4853, (2007).

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