G Arduini | PubMed Health

PubMed1996

Physical specifications of clinical proton beams from a synchrotron.

Tumor treatment with charged particle beams is a quickly developing field aimed to translate the potential advantages offered by the superior physical dose distribution and relative biological effectiveness of heavy charged particles into a real improvement of tumor therapy. To this purpose the new proton and light-ion radiation therapy facilities must be designed according to strict clinical specifications to provide a reliable and effective tool against cancer. This paper provides the performance specifications of the accelerator and of the beam transport and delivery systems of the Italian Hadrontherapy Centre, which should be satisfied to meet the clinical specifications. A discussion is given on the requirements on energy range, energy variability, beam intensity, lateral penumbra, distal dose falloff, source-to-surface distance, time structure of the extracted beam, raster scanning system specifications, and beam abort time. Though the physical specifications are given for a particular accelerator, they can be used as a general guideline for the design of future biomedical particle accelerator facilities.

Biophysical Phenomena↗

PubMed1993

[The hadron therapy project].

The neologism "hadrontherapy" means radiotherapy with hadrons, which are the particles constituted by quarks, such as protons, neutrons and ions. The theoretical considerations about the clinical advantages this treatment modality can yield and the results obtained at the centers where it has already been used justify the proposal to project a center of this kind also in our Country. To this purpose, two of the authors of this paper (U. Amaldi, G. Tosi) founded the TERA Group formed by physicists, engineers and radiotherapists who work in close collaboration on a feasibility study for a hadrontherapy facility. The first aim of the Hadrontherapy Project is to design a center equipped with a synchrotron which, at the beginning, will accelerate negative hydrogen ions (H-) which will first produce 70-250 MeV proton beams and, then accelerate light ions (up to 16O) to 430 MeV/amu. This accelerator will serve four or five treatment rooms where patients can be irradiated simultaneously. Two rooms will be equipped with a fixed horizontal beam for the treatment of eye, head and neck tumors; the others will be equipped with rotating gantries to administer, in any clinical situation, really adequate treatment. Such a unit, when enough experience is fained, will allow at least 1000 patients to be treated yearly. The synchrotron injector will be designed so as to allow, parallel to the radiotherapy activities, other applications of medical and biological interest such as: the production of radioisotopes for diagnostic use (especially positron emitters), the analysis of trace elements through the PIXE technique and the production of thermal and epithermal neutrons for boron neutron capture therapy.

Biophysical Phenomena↗