Newswise — PHILADELPHIA—Haisong Liu, Ph.D, of the Department of Radiation Oncology at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, has been named Director of Radiosurgery Physics for the Division of Stereotactic Radiosurgery at Jefferson Hospital for Neuroscience (JHN).
Headed by both David Andrews, M.D., a national recognized neurosurgeon and Maria Werner-Wasik, M.D., a well-known radiation oncologist, Jefferson’s Division of Stereotactic Radiosurgery is a collaboration between the Department of Neurosurgery and Radiation Oncology, dedicated to treat malignant or benign tumors and lesions of the brain or spine using minimally invasive and highly effective radiation beams.
Dr. Liu is a board certified medical physicist who has been working in Jefferson’s Bodine Center for Cancer Treatment for the past three years. He was a senior physicist leading the clinical brachytherapy physics program, including prostate seed implant and high dose rate brachytherapy. He also worked with radiation oncologists to initiate the stereotactic body radiotherapy program. He is an associate professor with the Department of Radiation Oncology in Jefferson Medical College.
He received his Ph.D from Tsinghua University in Beijing, China, and completed his postdoctoral training in medical physics at the Department of Radiation Oncology, University of Rochester Medical Center (URMC). He worked there as an assistant professor and medical physicist for seven years after his training. He was actively involved in stereotactic radiosurgery and stereotactic body radiotherapy program at URMC, and was also appointed as the program director for tomotherapy.
Stereotactic radiosurgery is the one-time application of a single large radiation dose to a tumor or tangle of abnormal blood vessels known as an arteriovenous malformation. And stereotactic radiotherapy is the fractionated radiation treatment that targets the problem area while minimizing the effects on surrounding healthy tissue.
The Division of Stereotactic Radiosurgery lies with within JHN, the only dedicated hospital for neuroscience in the Delaware valley region. It is equipped with advanced technologies for performing stereotactic radiosurgery, and is in the process of upgrading its equipments to more leading technologies in order to increase the treatment quality, safety, and efficiency.
“I’m looking forward to the collaboration with Drs. Andrews and Werner-Wasik, and their colleagues in Jefferson’s stereotactic radiosurgery program,” said Dr. Liu. “As a medical physicist, my goal is to ensure a high-quality radiosurgery treatment to the patients, both safely and efficiently. I would also like to develop more technologies to provide physicians with advanced tools to treat patients, such as hippocampus-sparing whole brain intensity modulated radiation therapy and functional MRI-based treatment planning.”
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