Physicist

Donald Sashin, Ph.D., Associate Professor. Donald's research interests include the development of medical devices for real time maintaining the brain's position during PET, CT, MRI and Stereotaxic RadioSurgery procedures. He is involved in studies with O-15 water and gas to measure regional CBF, CMRO2, and OEF in patients with compromised cerebrovascular reserve at baseline and post diamox. Additional research includes studies with phantom to measure and to optimize the performance of the PET-CT and HR+ PET scanners, and the development of a user managed exchangeable file format and routines for hte automatic processing of dynamic PET imaging.


Education
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Cambridge, MA		 B.S. 1960 Physics
Carnegie Institute of Technology
Pittsburgh, PA		 M.S. 1962 Physics
Carnegie-Mellon University
Pittsburgh, PA		 Ph.D. 1968 Physics

Selected Recent Publications
  • Straub WH, Gur D, Good WF, Campbell WL, Davis PL, Hecht ST, Skolnick ML, Thaete FL, Rosenthal MS, Sashin D: Primary CT diagnosis of abdominal masses in a PACS environment. Radiol. 178:739-43, 1991.
  • Grootoonk S, Spinks TJ, Kennedy AM, Bloomfield PM, Sashin D, JonesT: The practical implementation and accuracy of dual window scatter correction in a neuroPET scanner with the septa retracted. Conference Record of the IEEE Nuclear Science Symposium and Medical Imaging Conference, 942-944,1992.
  • Sashin D, Spinks TJ, Grootoonk S, Jones T: Smoothing of random data to reduce noise in 3D PET. Conference Record of the IEEE Nuclear Science Symposium and Medical Imaging Conference 937-939, 1992.
  • Tadokoro M, Jones AKP, Cunningham VJ, Sashin D, Grootoonk S, Ashburner J, Jones T: Parametric images of [11C]diprenorphine binding using spectral analysis of dynamic PET images acquired in 3D. Ann Nucl Med. 7:S50-S51, 1993.
  • Sashin D, Slasky BS, Pearsal CR: Reduced dose and improved image quality with a computerized line-scan radiograph. system. IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging. 12(2):380-393, 1993.
  • Grootoonk S, Spinks TJ, Kennedy AM, Bloomfield PM, Sashin D, Jones T: Quantitative 3D images from a PET scanner with retractable septa. conference Record of XVI Internaitonal Symposium on Cerebral Blood Flow and Metabolism, Sendai, Japan, May 22-28, 1993. J Cereb Blood Flow Metab. 13(SI):5825, 1993.
  • Sashin D, Mintun MA: Development of scanner correction techniques for quantitative 3D imaging in a whole body PET scanner with the septa retracted. Conference Record of IEEE Nuclear Science Symposium and Medical Imaging Conference, 1332-1335, 1993.
  • Beyer T, Kinahan PE, Townsend DW, Sashin D: The use of x-ray CT for attenuation correction of PET data. Conference Record of IEEE Nuclear Science Symposium and Medical Imaging Conference, 1573-1577, 1994.
  • Jadali F, Beyer T, Sashin D, Kinahan PE, Mintun MA, Townsend DW. The influence of out-of-field activity on scatter correction techniques for quantitative 3D PET imaging. J Nucl Med. 36(5):116P, 1995.
  • Kinahan PE, Jadali F, Sashin D, Brown ML, Mintun MA, Baron RL, Townsend DW. A comparison of 2D and 3D abdominal PET imaging. J Nucl Med. 36(5):7P, 1995.
  • Jadali F, Sashin D, Mintun MA, Bishop H, Choi Y, Logan TF, Johnson CS. [O-15] Water and PET imaging to evaluate tumor perfusion in response to interleukin-1. J Nucl Med. 36(5):187P, 1995.
  • Beyer T, Townsend DW, Kinahan PE, Sashin D. Attenuation correction for a combined 3D PET/CT scanner. Proceedings of International Meeting on 3D Image Reconstruction, 225-229, Aix, France,1995.
  • Townsend DW, Price JC, Lopresti BJ, Mintun MA, Kinahan PE, Jadali F, Sashin D, Simpson N, Mathis CA. Scatter correction for brain receptor quantitation in 3D PET, eds. Jones T, Myers R, Cunningham V, Bailey D, In: Quantification of brainfunction using PET. Academic Press. 76-81, 1996.
  • Grootoonk S, Spinks TJ, Sashin D, Spyrou NM, Jones T. Correction for scatter in 3D brain PET using a dual energy window method. Phys in Med & Biol. 41(12):2757-2774, 1996.
  • Smith G, Price JC, Mintun MA, Mathis CA, Simpson N, Lopresti B, Hartman L, Meltzer CC, Urso K, Huang H, Nichols T, Wiseman M, Sashin D. In vivo imaging of serotonin (5-HT2A) receptors in the human brain with positron emission tomography (PET) and [18F]altanserin. Synapse. 30:380-392, 1998.

  • Kinahan PE, Townsend DW, Beyer T, Sashin D. Attenuation correction for a combined 3D PET/CT scanner. Medical Physics. 25(10):2046-2053, 1998.
  • Nemoto EM, Yonas H, Kuwabara H, Pindzola R, Sashin D, Meltze C, Price JC. Detection of Stage II Compromised Cerebrovascular Reserve by Quantitative CBF with Diamox and Quantitative OEF by PET. J Cereb Blood Flow & Metab. 21:S361, 2001.
  • Kuwabara H, Sashin D, Price JC, Nemoto E. An improved approach for weighted integration look-up table (WILT) method. J Nucl Med. 42(5):P184, 2001.
  • Nemoto EM, Yonas H, Kuwabara H, Pindzola RR, Sashin DA, Meltzer CC, Price JC, Chang Y. Detection of Stage II Compromised Cerebrovascular Reserve by Xenon-CT Cerebral Blood Flow with Acetazolamide and Oxygen Extraction Fraction by Positron Emission Tomography. In: Brain Imaging Using PET, Academic Press. 259-267, 2002.
  • Logan TF, Jadali F, Egorin M, Sashin D, Gooding WE, Bishop H, Trump DL, Gardner D, Kirkwood J, Vlock D, Johnson C. Decreased Tumor Blood Flow as Measured by Positron Emission Tomography in Cancer Patients with Interleukin-1 and Carboplatin on a Phase I Trial. Cancer Chemoter Pharmacol. 50:433-444, 2002.
  • Pindzola RR, Nemoto EM, Sashin D, Kuwabara H, Yonas H. The presence of white matter strokes correlates with compromised reserve but not high oxygen extraction fraction. Stroke 34:257, 2003.

Ways to reach Dr. Sashin

U.S. Postal Mail
Donald Sashin, Ph.D.
University of Pittsburgh Medical Center
PUH PET Facility, B-938
200 Lothrop Street
Pittsburgh, PA 15213-2582
U.S.A.

Tel. (412) 647-0713
Fax (412) 647-0700

Or

Send email to Dr. Sashin at sashinda@.upmc.edu

radiologypethelpdesk@msx.upmc.edu Updated: 7/18/03