26.01.2017; Vortrag
Seminar: Particle therapy and the problem of range verification
Redner
Guntram Pausch (Oncoray Dresden)
Beams of energetic charged particles are meanwhile established tools of in the field of radiooncology. Just in Germany, five medical centers can provide proton or carbon beams for treating tumor patients. Compared with the classical radiotherapy using hard X-rays, particle therapy is distinguished by the potential to spare healthy tissue adjacent to the target region, which might be decisive in case of tumors located in immediate vicinity to organs at risk. In clinical practice, however, this potential cannot be fully tapped since the prediction (or planning) of ion beam ranges in tissue suffers from uncertainties. This leads to rather conservative safety margins and robust in favor of optimum treatment plans, resulting in a waste of healthy tissue.
Range verification by in vivo measurements in real time during the treatment is a key for resolving this discrepancy and for increasing the precision and health outcome of particle therapy. The Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) and OncoRay, the National Center for Radiation Research in Oncology in Dresden, have pioneered in this field. Various approaches to in-vivo range assessment have been explored, in particular prompt-gamma based methods like prompt gamma-ray imaging (PGI) with a Compton camera, and prompt gamma-ray timing (PGT) with single scintillation detectors. Major challenges are due to the harsh conditions in clinical treatments, which have to deliver a huge radiation dose in the shortest possible time. Consequently, range-verification systems have to deal with extreme detector loads but must collect representative data sets within split seconds. These constraints devaluate methods of gamma-ray imaging that are elsewhere proven and successful, for instance Compton imaging. Nevertheless, OncoRay / HZDR succeeded in using PGI for the first time worldwide in real patient treatments, and are about translating PGT to the clinics.
The talk briefly introduces to particle therapy and the problem of range verification, and it presents recent results obtained in this field at OncoRay and HZDR.
Beams of energetic charged particles are meanwhile established tools of in the field of radiooncology. Just in Germany, five medical centers can provide proton or carbon beams for treating tumor patients. Compared with the classical radiotherapy using hard X-rays, particle therapy is distinguished by the potential to spare healthy tissue adjacent to the target region, which might be decisive in case of tumors located in immediate vicinity to organs at risk. In clinical practice, however, this potential cannot be fully tapped since the prediction (or planning) of ion beam ranges in tissue suffers from uncertainties. This leads to rather conservative safety margins and robust in favor of optimum treatment plans, resulting in a waste of healthy tissue.
Range verification by in vivo measurements in real time during the treatment is a key for resolving this discrepancy and for increasing the precision and health outcome of particle therapy. The Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) and OncoRay, the National Center for Radiation Research in Oncology in Dresden, have pioneered in this field. Various approaches to in-vivo range assessment have been explored, in particular prompt-gamma based methods like prompt gamma-ray imaging (PGI) with a Compton camera, and prompt gamma-ray timing (PGT) with single scintillation detectors. Major challenges are due to the harsh conditions in clinical treatments, which have to deliver a huge radiation dose in the shortest possible time. Consequently, range-verification systems have to deal with extreme detector loads but must collect representative data sets within split seconds. These constraints devaluate methods of gamma-ray imaging that are elsewhere proven and successful, for instance Compton imaging. Nevertheless, OncoRay / HZDR succeeded in using PGI for the first time worldwide in real patient treatments, and are about translating PGT to the clinics.
The talk briefly introduces to particle therapy and the problem of range verification, and it presents recent results obtained in this field at OncoRay and HZDR.
Zeit
15:00
-
16:00
Uhr
Ort
Andreas-Schubert-Bau ASB/E19
Adresse
Zellescher Weg 19
D-01069 Dresden
D-01069 Dresden