PURPOSE The purpose of this guideline is to provide a list of critical performance tests in order to assist the Qualified Medical Physicist (QMP) in establishing and maintaining a safe and effective quality assurance (QA) program. The performance tests on a linear accelerator (linac) should be selected to fit the clinical patterns of use of the accelerator and care should be given to perform te...

• In total, 101 publications were identified through Quintiles’ HTA Accelerator database2: 67 assessed drugs, 12 procedures or interventions and 11 medical devices. The remaining 11 were clinical guidelines (not included in the analysis). Overall, 46 recommendations were positive and 44 negative. CONITEC assessed appraisals in 21 different therapeutic areas, out of which cancer (19 reports), ca...

An accelerator-based BNCT (Boron Neutron Capture Therapy) facility is now under construction and the entire system including the patient treatment system will be installed in the Ibaraki Medical Center for Advanced Neutron Therapy (tentative name). Investigation of an 8-MeV proton linac and of a beryllium-based neutron production target for the BNCT is progressing. We are aiming at the design a...

Radiation necrosis is a known sequela of delivering high doses of ionizing radiation to the central nervous system and may be confused with tumor recurrence. Although stereotactic radiation has found increasing application in managing central nervous system malignancies, the imaging appearance of benign tissue several years after such treatment has not been frequently documented in the medical ...

Radiotherapy is the second most frequent type of cancer treatment after surgery and before chemotherapy. Its aim is to deliver a lethal dose to the tumour with high-energy X-rays produced by a medical linear accelerator, while sparing surrounding healthy tissue. To improve the effectiveness of X-rays, the treatment is fractioned in several sessions (e.g. five sessions per week during six or sev...

Concept of Virtual accelerator is introduced to develop beam control application programs in the KEKB accelerator control system. A virtual accelerator is a computer process which simulates behavior of a beam in an accelerator and responds to the accelerator control program under development in a same way as an actual accelerator do. Users of the virtual accelerator can test their control algor...