700 research outputs found
In-room test results at CNAO of an innovative PT treatments online monitor (Dose Profiler)
The use of C, He and O ions as projectiles in Particle Therapy (PT) treatments is getting more and more widespread as a consequence of their enhanced relative biological effectiveness and oxygen enhancement ratio, when compared to the protons one. The advantages related to the incoming radiation improved efficacy are requiring an accurate online monitor of the dose release spatial distribution. Such monitor is necessary to prevent unwanted damage to the tissues surrounding the tumour that can arise, for example, due to morphological changes occurred in the patient during the treatment with respect to the initial CT scan. PT treatments with ions can be monitored by detecting the secondary radiation produced by the primary beam interactions with the patient body along the path towards the target volume. Charged fragments produced in the nuclear process of projectile fragmentation can be emitted at large angles with respect to the incoming beam direction and can be detected with high efficiency in a nearly background-free environment. The Dose Profiler (DP) detector, developed within the INSIDE project, is a scintillating fibre tracker that allows an online reconstruction and backtracking of such secondary charged fragments. The construction and preliminary in-room tests performed on the DP, carried out using the 12C ions beam of the CNAO treatment centre using an anthropomorphic phantom as a target, will be reviewed in this contribution. The impact of the secondary fragments interactions with the patient body will be discussed in view of a clinical application. Furthermore, the results implications for a pre-clinical trial on CNAO patients, foreseen in 2019, will be discussed
Scintillating fiber devices for particle therapy applications
Particle Therapy (PT) is a radiation therapy technique in which solid tumors are treated with charged ions and exploits the achievable highly localized dose delivery, allowing to spare healthy tissues and organs at risk. The development of a range monitoring technique to be used on-line, during the treatment, capable to reach millimetric precision is considered one of the important steps towards an optimization of the PT efficacy and of the treatment quality. To this aim, charged secondary particles produced in the nuclear interactions between the beam particles and the patient tissues can be exploited. Besides charged secondaries, also neutrons are produced in nuclear interactions. The secondary neutron component might cause an undesired and not negligible dose deposition far away from the tumor region, enhancing the risk of secondary malignant neoplasms that can develop even years after the treatment. An accurate neutron characterization (flux, energy and emission profile) is hence needed for a better evaluation of long-term complications. In this contribution two tracker detectors, both based on scintillating fibers, are presented. The first one, named Dose Profiler (DP), is planned to be used as a beam range monitor in PT treatments with heavy ion beams, exploiting the charged secondary fragments production. The DP is currently under development within the INSIDE (Innovative Solutions for In-beam DosimEtry in hadrontherapy) project. The second one is dedicated to the measurement of the fast and ultrafast neutron component produced in PT treatments, in the framework of the MONDO (MOnitor for Neutron Dose in hadrOntherapy) project. Results of the first calibration tests performed at the Trento Protontherapy center and at CNAO (Italy) are reported, as well as simulation studies
Measurement of secondary particle production induced by particle therapy ion beams impinging on a PMMA target
Particle therapy is a technique that uses accelerated charged ions for cancer treatment and combines a high irradiation precision with a high biological effectiveness in killing tumor cells [1]. Informations about the secondary particles emitted in the interaction of an ion beam with the patient during a treatment can be of great interest in order to monitor the dose deposition. For this purpose an experiment at the HIT (Heidelberg Ion-Beam Therapy Center) beam facility has been performed in order to measure fluxes and emission profiles of secondary particles produced in the interaction of therapeutic beams with a PMMA target. In this contribution some preliminary results about the emission profiles and the energy spectra of the detected secondaries will be presente
Extended calibration range for prompt photon emission in ion beam irradiation
Monitoring the dose delivered during proton and carbon ion therapy is still a
matter of research. Among the possible solutions, several exploit the
measurement of the single photon emission from nuclear decays induced by the
irradiation. To fully characterize such emission the detectors need
development, since the energy spectrum spans the range above the MeV that is
not traditionally used in medical applications. On the other hand, a deeper
understanding of the reactions involving gamma production is needed in order to
improve the physic models of Monte Carlo codes, relevant for an accurate
prediction of the prompt-gamma energy spectrum.This paper describes a
calibration technique tailored for the range of energy of interest and
reanalyzes the data of the interaction of a 80MeV/u fully stripped carbon ion
beam with a Poly-methyl methacrylate target. By adopting the FLUKA simulation
with the appropriate calibration and resolution a significant improvement in
the agreement between data and simulation is reported.Comment: 4 pages, 7 figures, Submitted to JINS
First Ex-Vivo Validation of a Radioguided Surgery Technique with beta- Radiation
Purpose: A radio-guided surgery technique with beta- -emitting radio-tracers
was suggested to overcome the effect of the large penetration of gamma
radiation. The feasibility studies in the case of brain tumors and abdominal
neuro-endocrine tumors were based on simulations starting from PET images with
several underlying assumptions. This paper reports, as proof-of-principle of
this technique, an ex-vivo test on a meningioma patient. This test allowed to
validate the whole chain, from the evaluation of the SUV of the tumor, to the
assumptions on the bio-distribution and the signal detection.
Methods: A patient affected by meningioma was administered 300 MBq of
90Y-DOTATOC. Several samples extracted from the meningioma and the nearby Dura
Mater were analyzed with a beta- probe designed specifically for this
radio-guided surgery technique. The observed signals were compared both with
the evaluation from the histology and with the Monte Carlo simulation.
Results: we obtained a large signal on the bulk tumor (105 cps) and a
significant signal on residuals of 0.2 ml (28 cps). We also show that
simulations predict correctly the observed yields and this allows us to
estimate that the healthy tissues would return negligible signals (~1 cps).
This test also demonstrated that the exposure of the medical staff is
negligible and that among the biological wastes only urine has a significant
activity.
Conclusions: This proof-of-principle test on a patient assessed that the
technique is feasible with negligible background to medical personnel and
confirmed that the expectations obtained with Monte Carlo simulations starting
from diagnostic PET images are correct.Comment: 17 pages, 4 Figs, Accepted by Physica Medic
Measurement of charged particle yields from therapeutic beams in view of the design of an innovative hadrontherapy dose monitor
Particle Therapy (PT) is an emerging technique, which makes use of charged particles to efficiently cure different kinds of solid tumors. The high precision in the hadrons dose deposition requires an accurate monitoring to prevent the risk of under-dosage of the cancer region or of over-dosage of healthy tissues. Monitoring techniques are currently being developed and are based on the detection of particles produced by the beam interaction into the target, in particular: charged particles, result of target and/or projectile fragmentation, prompt photons coming from nucleus de-excitation and back-to-back γ s, produced in the positron annihilation from β + emitters created in the beam interaction with the target. It has been showed that the hadron beam dose release peak can be spatially correlated with the emission pattern of these secondary particles. Here we report about secondary particles production (charged fragments and prompt γ s) performed at different beam and energies that have a particular relevance for PT applications: 12C beam of 80 MeV/u at LNS, 12C beam 220 MeV/u at GSI, and 12C, 4He, 16O beams with energy in the 50–300 MeV/u range at HIT. Finally, a project for a multimodal dose-monitor device exploiting the prompt photons and charged particles emission will be presented
Intraoperative probe detecting β− decays in brain tumour radio-guided surgery
Abstract Radio-guided surgery (RGS) is a technique to intraoperatively detect tumour remnants, favouring a radical resection. Exploiting β − emitting tracers provides a higher signal to background ratio compared to the established technique with γ radiation, allowing the extension of the RGS applicability range. We developed and tested a detector based on para-terphenyl scintillator with high sensitivity to low energy electrons and almost transparent to γ s to be used as intraoperative probe for RGS with β − emitting tracer. Portable read out electronics was customised to match the surgeon needs. This probe was used for preclinical test on specific phantoms and a test on "ex vivo" specimens from patients affected by meningioma showing very promising results for the application of this new technique on brain tumours. In this paper, the prototype of the intraoperative probe and the tests are discussed; then, the results on meningioma are used to make predictions on the performance of the probe detecting residuals of a more challenging and more interesting brain tumour: the glioma
Radioguided surgery with \u3b2 radiation: a novel application with Ga68.
Radio Guided Surgery is a technique helping the surgeon in the resection of tumors: a radiolabeled tracer is administered to the patient before surgery and then the surgeon evaluates the completeness of the resection with a handheld detector sensitive to emitted radiation. Established methods rely on \u3b3 emitting tracers coupled with \u3b3 detecting probes. The efficacy of this technique is however hindered by the high penetration of \u3b3 radiation, limiting its applicability to low background conditions. To overtake such limitations, a novel approach to RGS has been proposed, relying on \u3b2- emitting isotopes together with a dedicated \u3b2 probe. This technique has been proved to be effective in first ex-vivo trials. We discuss in this paper the possibility to extend its application cases to 68Ga, a \u3b2+ emitting isotope widely used today in nuclear medicine. To this aim, a retrospective study on 45 prostatic cancer patients was performed, analysing their 68Ga-PSMA PET images to asses if the molecule uptake is enough to apply this technique. Despite the expected variability both in terms of SUV (median 4.1, IQR 3.0-6.1) and TNR (median 9.4, IQR 5.2-14.6), the majority of cases have been found to be compatible with \u3b2-RGS with reasonable injected activity and probing time (5\u2009s)
Characterization of a detector for β− radio-guided surgery
This paper reports a new device for the radio-guided surgery technique exploiting β− emitters. A specific intraoperative β− detecting probe based on a low-density organic crystal, the diphenylbutadiene-doped para-therphenyl, coupled by optical fibres to a photomultiplier, was developed. A portable readout electronics was designed to provide the surgeons with multi real-time feedback. The
aspects related to the applicability of the device, in particular the perception of the spatial resolution of the probe and the comprehension time necessary to the operator
to interpret the system response were investigated. Preliminary promising results support the possibility of using this innovative probe in cancer surgery
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