Treatment of primary tumours of bone and cartilage by extracorporeal irradiation with a low energy high power electron linac

Abstract

At the Gent University, a promising treatment in bone and cartilage tumours therapy is applied: resection of the affected specimen, extracorporeal photon irradiation to a dose of 300 Gy, produced with a 15 MeV medium duty factor electron linac, and reimplantation. This radiotherapeutical treatment technique is presented, with emphasis on the accelerator related aspects. The design and construction of the high photon dose irradiation set-up and methods for dose homogenisation are described in detail, together with the associated control equipment, irradiation procedures and some results.