Accelerators for Therapy

In the past decades circular and linear electron accelerators have been developed for clinical use in radiation therapy of tumors with the aim of achieving a high radiation dose in the tumor and as low as possible dose in the adjacent normal tissues. Today about one thousand accelerators are in medical use throughout the world and many hundred thousand patients are treated every day with accelerator-produced radiation. There exists, however, a large number of patients who cannot be treated satisfactorily in this way. New types of radiations such as neutrons, negative pions, protons and heavy ions were therefore tested recently. The clinical experience with these radiations and with new types of treatment procedures indicate that in future the use of a scanning beam of high energy protons might be optimal for the treatment of tumors.