Heavy Ion Tumor Therapy at GSI closed

These innovations have been the result of a long standing research and development in radiobiological and physical experiments, design and construction of a dedicated fast magnetic deflection system and its electronic control , treatment planning and accelerator developments. From the beginning of the pilot project all these innovations were available and used without any major restriction. Treatment plans were biologically optimized, simultaneously for two or three fields. The PET data were taken normally for each field and analysed for range deviations that occurred in a few patients. In these cases treatment planning was repeated based on a new CT image. Treatment started with slowly growing tumors in head and neck with the intension of a full course of curative care. Although the head and neck area has a very complex geometry, difficult to plan and sensitive to positioning error, the fixation of the head by external means is rather safe and reproducible. In addition slowly growing tumors such as chordomas, chordrosarcomas are normally very resistant against normal radiotherapy but become sensitive to carbon irradiation.