Jan 09, 2020 16:00:00

Patient undergoing radiation treatment has beam coming out of eyes

by

Lee Faircloth

Some people who have been exposed to radiation for treatment, and some astronauts who have been exposed to cosmic rays , have experienced that they can see light even with their eyes closed. That. A research team from Irwin Tendler, a biomedical engineer at Dartmouth University in the United States, captured the first photo of the 'identity of the phenomenon in which a patient sees light during radiation therapy'.

Experimentally Observed Cherenkov Light Generation in the Eye During Radiation Therapy-International Journal of Radiation Oncology • Biology • Physics
https://www.redjournal.org/article/S0360-3016(19)33947-1/fulltext

Bizarre Phenomenon of Light Flashing From Human Eyes Caught on Camera For First Time
https://www.sciencealert.com/the-elusive-phenomenon-of-light-flashing-from-human-eyes-has-been-captured-for-the-first-time

Scientists capture for first time, light flashes from human eye during radiotherapy | EurekAlert! Science News
https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-01/dmc-scf010720.php

Below are the actual photos taken by Tendler.

The radiated person's eyes

glow according to the same principle as Cherenkov radiation , in which the pool containing nuclear fuel appears to glow blue. The hypothesis that this light may be Cherenkov light has been proposed for a long time, but it has never been proved. This time, the research team used C-Dose, a camera with a complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) sensor developed by a company called DoseOptics. C-Dose is a medical camera that has been developed to confirm that radiation treatment is being performed properly. It can visually detect radiation that is originally invisible.

The research team first conducted tests using a pig's eyeballs, whose body structure is believed to resemble humans. From the spectrum analysis of the observed light, it was confirmed that Cherenkov light was actually emitted from the pig's eyeball.

The research team then holds the eyeball Orbit ( Cancer ) With the cooperation of a female patient who was being treated for a nearby

meningioma , I was asked to take a picture of the radiation treatment using C-Dose. The picture at the beginning was taken at that time. Radiation was applied to the affected area 112.5 mm above the crown. The patient who was undergoing radiation therapy reported that he had expressed his impression that 'even when the eyelids were closed or opened, blue light, stripes, sparks, and spots of light were visible.'

Mr. Tendler commented on the results of this experiment, `` Because it was possible to capture the light emission from the eyeball during radiation treatment and directly determine how radiation is incident on the eyeball, more accurate radiation treatment And alleviate patient anxiety. ' The research team plans to investigate the relationship between the observed Cherenkov light and the irradiated radiation dose, and to develop a method that can measure and predict the radiation dose irradiated to the eyeball.