Speaker
Description
Cancer can be treated by radiation therapy, which means that the tumor is destroyed by irradiating it with photons or hadrons (protons or heavier nuclei). In hadron therapy, the organs surrounding the tumor receive a smaller dose than if the treatment is done by photons; however, to plan such a treatment the energy loss of hadrons in the surrounding tissue has to be known precisely. Usually this is calculated from images made with photons via CT measurements. Using photons for the calculations results in large uncertainties in the energy loss of hadrons, which restrains us from using such a treatment in the vicinity of critical organs. CT measurements done using protons would allow us to largely reduce these uncertainties, therefore reducing the unnecessary radiation dose received by the patient and making hadron treatment available for more types of cancer. I will show the developments in Bergen of such a proton CT based on the ALPIDE sensor, which was originally developed for the Inner Tracking System of the ALICE detector.