Feasibility of Positron Emission Tomography of Dose Distribution in Proton-Beam Cancer Therapy.

Beebe-Wang, J. J. ; Dilmanian, F. A. ; Peggs, S. G. ; Schlyer, D. J. ; Vaska, P.

Technical Information Center Oak Ridge Tennessee

关键词: Positrons;    Proton beams;    Tomography;    Radiation doses;    Cancer;   

RP-ID  :  DE2003804610

学科分类：工程和技术（综合）

美国|英语

来源: National Technical Reports Library

【 摘 要 】

Proton therapy is a treatment modality of increasing utility in clinical radiation oncology mostly because its dose distribution conforms more tightly to the target volume than x-ray radiation therapy. One important feature of proton therapy is that it produces a small amount of positron-emitting isotopes along the beam-path through the non-elastic nuclear interaction of protons with target nuclei. These radioisotopes allow imaging the therapy dose distribution using positron emission tomography (PET). The resulting PET images provide a powerful tool for quality assurance of the treatment, especially when treating inhomogeneous organs such as the lungs or the head-and-neck, where the calculation of the dose distribution for treatment planning is more difficult. This paper uses Monte Carlo simulations to predict the yield of positron emitters produced by a 250 MeV proton beam, and to simulate the productions of the image in a clinical PET scanner.