Simulation for position determination of distal and proximal edges for SOBP irradiation in hadron therapy by using the maximum likelihood estimation method

Abstract

In radiation therapy with hadron beams, conformal irradiation to a tumour can be achieved by using the properties of incident ions such as the high dose concentration around the Bragg peak. For the effective utilization of such properties, it is necessary to evaluate the volume irradiated with hadron beams and the deposited dose distribution in a patient's body. Several methods have been proposed for this purpose, one of which uses the positron emitters generated through fragmentation reactions between incident ions and target nuclei. In the previous paper, we showed that the maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) method could be applicable to the estimation of beam end-point from the measured positron emitting activity distribution for mono-energetic beam irradiations. In a practical treatment, a spread-out Bragg peak (SOBP) beam is used to achieve a uniform biological dose distribution in the whole target volume. Therefore, in the present paper, we proposed to extend the MLE method to estimations of the position of the distal and proximal edges of the SOBP from the detected annihilation gamma ray distribution. We confirmed the effectiveness of the method by means of simulations. Although polyethylene was adopted as a substitute for a soft tissue target in validating the method, the proposed method is equally applicable to general cases, provided that the reaction cross sections between the incident ions and the target nuclei are known. The relative advantage of incident beam species to determine the position of the distal and the proximal edges was compared. Furthermore, we ascertained the validity of applying the MLE method to determinations of the position of the distal and the proximal edges of an SOBP by simulations and we gave a physical explanation of the distal and the proximal information.