The main hindrance to the diffusion of proton therapy facilities is the high cost for gantry installations. An alternative technical option is provided by fixed-beam treatment rooms, where the patient is rotated and translated in space with a robotic arm solution to enable beam incidence from various angles. The technological efforts based on robotic applications made up to now for patient posi...

Major progress of the Heidelberg ion beam cancer ther-apy centre took place in 2007. The first turn of the beamin the synchrotron was reached on February, 7th. Firstbeam in a treatment room was achieved on March, 20th.Until December, 16ththe beam performance in the firsttwo treatment rooms was pushed to the quality which isrequired for patient tre...

Introduction: Treatment with megavoltage electron beams is ideal for irradiating superficial tumors because of their limited range in tissues. However, for electron treatment of extended areas, such as the chest wall, two or more adjacent fields can be used. Abutment of these fields may lead to significant dose in homogeneities in the junction region. The aim of this study is to offer a new met...

A novel method has been put forward for very large electron beam profile measurement. With this method, absorbed dose profiles can be measured at any depth in a solid phantom for total skin electron therapy. Electron beam dose profiles were collected with two different methods. Profile measurements were performed at 0.2 and 1.2 cm depths with a parallel plate and a thimble chamber, respectively...

Laser-accelerated particles are a promising option for radiation therapy of cancer by potentially combining a compact, cost-efficient treatment unit with the physical advantages of charged particle beams. To design such a treatment unit we consider different dose delivery schemes and analyze the necessary devices in the required particle beam line for each case. Furthermore, we point out that l...

Purpose: The aim of this study was to develop a method for the direct measurement of electron beam width and distribution at the scattering foil on the carrousel in a medical linear accelerator gantry head, which differs from an existing indirect method for measuring the focal spot size using a camera or metallic slit located outside the gantry head. Methods: The electron beam emitted by the li...

Abstract Arc-therapy and flash therapy are promising proton treatment modalities as they enable further sparing of the healthy tissues surrounding tumor site. They impose strong constraints on beam delivery system rotating gantry structure, in particular providing high dose rate fast energy scanning. Fixed-field achromatic transport lattices potentially satisfy both allowing instant modulation ...

A self-consistent monitor unit (MU) and isocenter point-dose calculation method has been developed that provides an independent verification of the MU for intensity modulated radiotherapy (IMRT) using the MIMiC (Nomos Corporation) multileaf collimator. The method takes into account two unique features of IMRT using the MIMiC: namely the gantry-dynamic arc delivery of intensity modulated photon ...

PURPOSE MLC dynamic log files have been clinically used for quality assurance for years. The logged machine parameters and the derived beam 2D fluence maps can be compared to the ones obtained in the treatment plans in order to evaluate the accuracy and consistency of IMRT beam deliveries. In this study, we propose a computationally efficient method, called Direct 3D Fluence Calculation or D3DF...

The purpose of this study is to describe the comprehensive commissioning process and initial clinical experience of the Mevion S250 proton therapy system, a gantry-mounted, single-room proton therapy platform clinically implemented in the S. Lee Kling Proton Therapy Center at Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis, MO, USA. The Mevion S250 system integrates a compact synchrocyclotron with a C-inne...