Abstract
BackgroundIon beam radiotherapy provides potential for increased dose conformation to the target volume. To translate it into a clinical advantage, it is necessary to guarantee a precise alignment of the actual internal patient geometry with the treatment beam. This is in particular challenging for inter- and intrafractional variations, including movement. Ion beams have the potential for a high sensitivity imaging of the patient geometry. However, the research on suitable imaging methods is not conclusive yet. Here we summarize the research activities within the “Clinical research group heavy ion therapy” funded by the DFG (KFO214). Our aim was to develop a method for the visualization of a 1 mm thickness difference with a spatial resolution of about 1 mm at clinically applicable doses.MethodsWe designed and built a dedicated system prototype for ion radiography using exclusively the pixelated semiconductor technology Timepix developed at CERN. Helium ions were chosen as imaging radiation due to their decreased scattering in comparison to protons, and lower damaging potential compared to carbon ions. The data acquisition procedure and a dedicated information processing algorithm were established. The performance of the method was evaluated at the ion beam therapy facility HIT in Germany with geometrical phantoms. The quality of the images was quantified by contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR) and spatial resolution (SR) considering the imaging dose.ResultsUsing the unique method for single ion identification, degradation of the images due to the inherent contamination of the outgoing beam with light secondary fragments (hydrogen) was avoided. We demonstrated experimentally that the developed data processing increases the CNR by 350%. Consideration of the measured ion track directions improved the SR by 150%. Compared to proton radiographs at the same dose, helium radiographs exhibited 50% higher SR (0.56 ± 0.04lp/mm vs. 0.37 ± 0.02lp/mm) at a comparable CNR in the middle of the phantom. The clear visualization of the aimed inhomogeneity at a diagnostic dose level demonstrates a resolution of 0.1 g/cm2 or 0.6% in terms of water-equivalent thickness.ConclusionsWe developed a dedicated method for helium ion radiography, based exclusively on pixelated semiconductor detectors. The achievement of a clinically desired image quality in simple phantoms at diagnostic dose levels was demonstrated experimentally.
Highlights
Ion beam radiotherapy provides potential for increased dose conformation to the target volume
* Correspondence: m.martisikova@dkfz.de The results presented in this publication are parts of: Gehrke, Tim: Heliumbeam radiography with a fully pixelated silicon detection system, PhD thesis, Heidelberg University in Germany, 2018
For a future identification of inter- and intra-fractional changes in the patient anatomy in the coordinate system of the treatment room, we have developed an imaging method based on ion radiography
Summary
Ion beam radiotherapy provides potential for increased dose conformation to the target volume. To translate it into a clinical advantage, it is necessary to guarantee a precise alignment of the actual internal patient geometry with the treatment beam. This is in particular challenging for inter- and intrafractional variations, including movement. Ion beams have the potential for a high sensitivity imaging of the patient geometry. The superior dose distributions theoretically achievable with ions can be compromised by uncertainties from different sources in the clinical practice. The conversion of the attenuation data acquired by a CT to the stopping power distribution, which is needed as an input to the treatment planning, is associated with range uncertainties of 2-3% and in some cases even more [29, 30, 34]
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