2 research outputs found
Proton radiographs using position-sensitive silicon detectors and high-resolution scintillators
Proton therapy is a cancer treatment technique currently in growth worldwide.
It offers advantages with respect to conventional X-ray and -ray
radiotherapy, in particular, a better control of the dose deposition allowing
to reach a higher conformity in the treatments. Therefore, it causes less
damage to the surrounding healthy tissue and less secondary effects. However,
in order to take full advantage of its potential, improvements in treatment
planning and dose verification are required. A new prototype of proton Computed
Tomography scanner is proposed to design more accurate and precise treatment
plans for proton therapy. Here, results obtained from an experiment performed
using a 100-MeV proton beam at the CCB facility in Krakow (Poland) are
presented. Proton radiographs of PMMA samples of 50-mm thickness with spatial
patterns in aluminum were taken. Their properties were studied, including
reproduction of the dimensions, spatial resolution and sensitivity to different
materials. They demonstrate the capabilities of the system to produce images
with protons. Structures of up to 2 mm are nicely resolved and the sensitivity
of the system was enough to distinguish thicknesses of 10 mm of aluminum or
PMMA. This constitutes a first step to validate the device as a proton
radiography scanner previous to the future tests as a proton CT scanner.Comment: 7 pages, 11 figures, submitted to IEEE TNS ANIMMA 2021 Conference
Proceeding
Proton Radiographs Using Position-Sensitive Silicon Detectors and High-Resolution Scintillators
7 pags., 11 figs., 1 tab.Proton therapy is a cancer treatment technique currently in growth since it offers advantages with respect to conventional X-ray and ¿ -ray radiotherapy. In particular, better control of the dose deposition allowing to reach higher conformity in the treatments causing less secondary effects. However, in order to take full advantage of its potential, improvements in treatment planning and dose verification are required. A new prototype of proton computed tomography scanner is proposed to design more accurate and precise treatment plans for proton therapy. Our prototype is formed by double-sided silicon strip detectors and scintillators of LaBr3(Ce) with high energy resolution and fast response. Here, the results obtained from an experiment performed using a 100-MeV proton beam are presented. Proton radiographs of polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) samples of 50-mm thickness with spatial patterns in aluminum were taken. Their properties were studied, including reproduction of the dimensions, spatial resolution, and sensitivity to different materials. Structures of up to 2 mm are well resolved and the sensitivity of the system was enough to distinguish the thicknesses of 10 mm of aluminum or PMMA. The spatial resolution of the images was 0.3 line pairs per mm (MTF-10%). This constitutes the first step to validate the device as a proton radiography scanner.This work has been supported by the PRONTO-CM
B2017/BMD-3888 project funded by Comunidad de Madrid
(Spain). The research leading to these results has received
funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research
and innovation programme under grant agreement no. 654002
(ENSAR2) and grant agreement No [730983] (INSPIRE).
This work has been partly supported by the Spanish Funding
Agency for Research (AEI) through the PID2019-104390GBI00 and PID2019-104714GB-C21 projects. A.N. Nerio acknowledges the fundings from the Erasmus Mundus Joint
Master Degree on Nuclear Physics co-funded by the Erasmus+Programme of the European Union