The proton therapy system for the NPTC: equipment description and progress report

Abstract

Proton therapy is widely acknowledged as one of the most effective methods in the selective destruction of cancer cells. Its development has, however, been hampered by the complexity, the size and the cost of the necessary equipment, which were up to now not adapted to the hospital environment. Things are changing in this regard. At the beginning of 1994, the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) of the Harvard Medical School in Boston, MA, USA, a pioneer in proton therapy since 1959, selected a team led by IBA to supply the proton therapy equipment of its new Northeast Proton Therapy Centre (NPTC). The present paper presents the integrated system being build for the NPTC. This equipment includes a compact 235 MeV isochronous cyclotron, a short energy selection system transforming the fixed energy beam extracted from the cyclotron into a variable energy beam, one or more isocentric gantries fitted with a nozzle, one or more horizontal beam lines, a global control system including an accelerator control unit and several independent but networked therapy control stations, a global safety management system, and a robotic patient positioning system.