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Pratik Samant

@samantp.bsky.social
281 followers 121 following 142 posts

He/Him | NHS Radiotherapy Physicist | I occasionally post cancer/physics facts | Views my own | 🇨🇦 in 🇬🇧 www.oncology.ox.ac.uk/team/pratik-s…

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Pratik Samant @samantp.bsky.social · 27/11/2024
🧪Cancer fact of the day: modern radiotherapy is less like a blunt instrument, and more like a precision strike. For example, stereotactic radiosurgery can treat tumours as small as 0.7-1cm in diameter (about as large as a grain of rice), while having the dose reduce by 20 fold just 1.5cm away!
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Pratik Samant @samantp.bsky.social · 26/11/2024
That is unfortunately the case with most/all cancer therapy. Modern RT takes very deliberate steps to minimize the damage to healthy tissue (e.g. modern machines can sculpt the dose in 3D). It is used in more than 50% of cancer patients and has been a major factor in doubling UK cancer survival.
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Pratik Samant @samantp.bsky.social · 18/11/2024
🧪Cancer fact of the day: physicists and engineers are essential to modern medicine, and enable the use of just about every imaging/treatment device in cancer radiotherapy. However, as we're usually behind the scenes, patients (and even colleagues) sometimes don't know we exist 😅!
DID YOU KNOW?
It takes at least two physicists
to work out a safe treatment plan
for your radiotherapy treatment.

DID YOU KNOW?
Academic scientists transform physics
and engineering principles into leading edge healthcare research.
DID YOU KNOW?
Teams of engineers and scientists check every machine hospitals
to keep them working properly.
DID YOU KNOW?
Engineers and physicists in industry work together to develop
the latest generation of radiotherapy treatment machines.
DID YOU KNOW?
A technologist is needed to perform some
of the scans doctors use for your diagnosis.
DID YOU KNOW?
Every piece of imaging equipment using x-rays is tested by a scientist to make sure it is safe.
DID YOU KNOW?
Rehabilitation engineers design high-tech ways to make patients more comfortable and independent.



Without physics and engineering there would be no
modern healthcare,
Institute of Physics and Engineering in Medicine
@ipemnew
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Pratik Samant @samantp.bsky.social · 14/11/2024
Bluesky tip, let's say that for whatever reason you wanted to block this list of users, you first need to go to the list and click SUBSCRIBE, which then unlocks the button to block all. Took me longer than I'd like to admit to figure out. This is how bluesky can stay pure.
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Pratik Samant @samantp.bsky.social · 21/02/2024
why would you say something so controversial yet so brave?
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Pratik Samant @samantp.bsky.social · 12/02/2024
With the caveat that I am a physicist, I think the NHS is much fixable, and it comes down to funding. There has been chronic underinvestment since the tories took power, and now we are facing collapse of basic infrastructure. That can be rebuilt (albeit slowly), and Labour did it in the noughties.
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Pratik Samant @samantp.bsky.social · 22/12/2023
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Pratik Samant @samantp.bsky.social · 28/11/2023
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Pratik Samant @samantp.bsky.social · 21/11/2023
When we start regularly producing bangers like this, twitter will come toppling down like a house of cards
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Pratik Samant @samantp.bsky.social · 21/11/2023
Are mathematicians ok? 🧪 arxiv.org/pdf/2106.11285
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Pratik Samant @samantp.bsky.social · 07/11/2023
Happy international day of medical physics to all who celebrate! How far we have come 🙂 🧪
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Pratik Samant @samantp.bsky.social · 17/08/2023
How it started vs how it's going, Rupert Murdoch edition.
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Pratik Samant @samantp.bsky.social · 15/08/2023
Theoretical Physicist, Medical Physicist, Experimental Physicist 🧪
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Pratik Samant @samantp.bsky.social · 26/07/2023
AYO???? 🧪
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Pratik Samant @samantp.bsky.social · 25/07/2023
The wiki synopsis just gets more and more insane as you go on. Going to pass on this one.
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Pratik Samant @samantp.bsky.social · 24/07/2023
POV: you are a Visigoth in 410AD
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Pratik Samant @samantp.bsky.social · 10/07/2023
I am begging US politicos who have run out of things to write about to stop making Joe Biden look cool as shit. www.axios.com/2023/07/10/biden-temp…
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Pratik Samant @samantp.bsky.social · 10/07/2023
"The main target for cancer waiting times, that 85 per cent of patients start treatment within two months of an urgent referral, hasn't been met in almost a decade." 🙃 🧪 tinyurl.com/NHS-wait-time
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Pratik Samant @samantp.bsky.social · 10/07/2023
It ultimately comes down to cost. For the price of one (typical) proton accelator, you can build ~5 photon linear accelerators, and with modern day dose shaping technology the advantages of protons are compensated for somewhat by the fact that modern photon doses in 3D are "sculpted" as below 🧪
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Pratik Samant @samantp.bsky.social · 10/07/2023
Cancer (medical physics?) fact of the day: The choice of which particle to irradiate with depends on where the tumour is! Electrons deposit a lot of dose to surface, photons deposit dose deeper in the body, and protons deposit a large dose at an adjustable depth. 🧪
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Pratik Samant @samantp.bsky.social · 04/07/2023
Cancer fact of the day: Thanks to improved treatment and diagnostic tools, the overall cancer survival rate (in 🇬🇧) has more than doubled in the past 40 years! It has gone from 24% to 50% and may well continue to increase with novel therapies complementing an already impressive array of tools. 🧪
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Pratik Samant @samantp.bsky.social · 30/06/2023
Behold! The ship of the future!!
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Pratik Samant @samantp.bsky.social · 28/06/2023
Cancer fact of the day: CRUK estimates that ~40% of cancers in the UK are preventable; we are losing 150 000 people per year to preventable cancers. The top two risk factors across all UK nations are smoking and obesity/overweight status, which together account for 20% of preventable cancers.🧪
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Pratik Samant @samantp.bsky.social · 27/06/2023
Cancer fact of the day: Medical linear accelerators can "sculpt" a radiotherapy dose distribution in 3D around the planning target (PTV). Dose delivery (with proper QA) can be guaranteed within just 1mm of (spatial) uncertainty! 🧪 More here: youtu.be/jSgnWfbEx1A
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Pratik Samant @samantp.bsky.social · 26/06/2023
Tl;Dr 🧪 (DNA damage can trigger apoptosis in cancer cells, aka programmed cell suicide, but it can also just stop them from dividing, which is just as good for therapeutic purposes)
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Pratik Samant @samantp.bsky.social · 26/06/2023
I know I have slipped with the politics posting but in my defense the country in charge of the largest nuclear arsenal in the world was about to have a coup and still might
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Pratik Samant @samantp.bsky.social · 23/06/2023
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Pratik Samant @samantp.bsky.social · 21/06/2023
Live footage of the moment my invite code worked
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