Abstract
For many years, silicon micro-strip detectors have been successfully used as tracking detectors for particle and nuclear physics experiments. A new application of this technology is to the field of particle therapy where radiotherapy is carried out by use of charged particles such as protons or carbon ions. Such a treatment has been shown to have advantages over standard x-ray radiotherapy and as a result of this, many new centres offering particle therapy are currently under construction around the world today. The Proton Radiotherapy, Verification and Dosimetry Applications (PRaVDA) consortium are developing instrumentation for particle therapy based upon technology from high-energy physics.The characteristics of a new silicon micro-strip tracker for particle therapy will be presented. The array uses specifically designed, large area sensors with technology choices that follow closely those taken for the ATLAS experiment at the HL-LHC. These detectors will be arranged into four units each with three layers in an x–u–v configuration to be suitable for fast proton tracking with minimal ambiguities.The sensors will form a tracker capable of tracing the path of ~200MeV protons entering and exiting a patient allowing a new mode of imaging known as proton computed tomography (pCT). This will aid the accurate delivery of treatment doses and in addition, the tracker will also be used to monitor the beam profile and total dose delivered during the high fluences used for treatment.We present here details of the design, construction and assembly of one of the four units that will make up the complete tracker along with its characterisation using radiation tests carried out using a 90Sr source in the laboratory and a 60MeV proton beam at the Clatterbridge Cancer Centre.
Highlights
Particle therapy: alongside surgery and chemotherapy, radiotherapy remains one of the three major tools used by clinicians to combat cancer today
For x-rays, energy is lost in an exponential fashion and much of the dose is given to healthy tissue before and after the tumour
This can be avoided by using a beam of charged particles such as protons
Summary
Particle therapy: alongside surgery and chemotherapy, radiotherapy remains one of the three major tools used by clinicians to combat cancer today. For cancers deep inside the body or close to critical structures, particle therapy has been shown to have a distinct advantage over standard x-ray radiotherapy This is a result of the underlying physics that describes how radiation interacts with matter. For x-rays, energy is lost in an exponential fashion and much of the dose is given to healthy tissue before and after the tumour This can be avoided by using a beam of charged particles such as protons. Proton imaging: instrumental to the planning of any program of radiotherapy is a good imaging modality that can deliver accurate information on the patient's anatomy, and in particular the accurate location of the target volume For proton therapy, this is carried out by an x-ray CT scan from which the proton stopping power of the tissue can be derived and the necessary range of the treatment beam calculated. The current design of the tracker will demonstrate that a completely solid state system offering high-precision directional information on the path of protons can be used in conjunction with an energyrange measurement to perform a pCT scan [22]
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