Speaker
Carlo Fiorini
(Politecnico di Milano and INFN sezione di milano,Italy)
Description
Particle therapy plays nowadays an important role in cancer treatment and growing research efforts are directed in this direction. In particular, strength of proton therapy, is related to the possibility to release the maximum of the dose in the target site destroying tumoral cells and limiting otherwise the dose to normal tissue. For this purpose, the measurement of the proton beam range in the target is very important and one method to reach this goal is based on the measurement of prompt gamma rays emitted by excited nuclei during proton irradiation.
This work deals with the application of the recently developed HICAM (HIgh resolution CAMera) camera for the measurements of prompt gamma rays. The camera is composed by 25 Silicon Drift Detectors of 1cm2 active area each, 5x5 format, characterized by a high quantum efficiency (>80%) and low electronic noise. The HICAM camera is characterized by a very high intrinsic resolution (~1mm) and has recently shown good performances both in clinical and pre-clinical measurements. The photodetectors are coupled with a LYSO crystal of 1cm thickness, and a first measurement session was made to assess the imaging capability of the system with a 60Co source.
The second part of the trials is foreseen in radiotherapy facility with the cooperation of IBA and ULB which are involved in the development of a practical concept of a prompt gamma camera which would allow checking in real-time the range of a single pencil beam with accuracy of millimeters. The experimental set up consists in a proton beam impinging on a PMMA target of 20 cm length. HICAM camera is used with a slit collimator to detect prompt gammas emitted in a perpendicular direction with respect the beam one.
The results of these preliminary tests and some possible future perspectives are here presented.
Preferred medium (Oral/poster)
oral
Primary author
roberta peloso
(Politecnico di Milano and INFN sezione di milano, Italy)
Co-authors
Arthur Benilov
(Ion Beam Applications S.A., Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium)
Carlo Fiorini
(Politecnico di Milano and INFN sezione di milano,Italy)
Damien Prieels
(Ion Beam Applications S.A., Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium)
Frauke Roellinghoff
(1 Ion Beam Applications S.A., Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium)
Frédéric Stichelbaut
(Ion Beam Applications S.A., Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium)
Julien Smeets
(Department of Nuclear Metrology, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium)
Manuel Basilavecchia
(XGlab, Milano,Italy)
Paolo Busca
(Politecnico di Milano and INFN sezione di milano,Italy)
Tommaso Frizzi
(XGlab, Milano,Italy)
