Contrary to popular opinion, the concept of treating cancer using high energy beams of protons is not new. First conceived in 1946, following a period in which patients were treated only in laboratory facilities, the first hospital-based facility opened in 1990 at Loma Linda University Medical Center (United States). Currently there are 67 centres in operation, with a further 32 in the construc...

Proton pencil beam scanning is a dynamic delivery technique with excellent conformability to the tumor volume. The accuracy of spot size and positions will have significant effect on delivered dose distribution. We employed polymer gel dosimeters measure for Shanghai Advanced Therapy facility (SAPT). Polymer (MAGAT-f PAGAT) were utilized full width at half maximum (FWHM) various depths basis th...

In this paper we propose a solution to the need for fast particle transport algorithm in Online Adaptive Proton Therapy capable of cheaply, but accurately computing changes patient dose metrics as result system parameters. We obtain proton phase-space density through product numerical one-dimensional Fokker-Planck equation and analytical Fermi-Eyges equation. Moreover, corresponding adjoint was...

PURPOSE The biological optimization of proton therapy can be achieved only through a detailed evaluation of relative biological effectiveness (RBE) variations along the full range of the Bragg curve. The clinically used RBE value of 1.1 represents a broad average, which disregards the steep rise of linear energy transfer (LET) at the distal end of the spread-out Bragg peak (SOBP). With particul...

We have evaluated the spatial distribution of energy deposition by proton beams in liquid water using the simulation code SEICS (Simulation of Energetic Ions and Clusters through Solids), which combines molecular dynamics and Monte Carlo techniques and includes the main interaction phenomena between the projectile and the target constituents: (i) the electronic stopping force due to energy loss...

The aim of the study was to determine the relative biological effectiveness (RBE) of a 60-MeV proton radiotherapy beam at the Institute of Nuclear Physics, Polish Academy of Sciences (IFJ PAN) in Kraków, the first one to operate in Poland. RBE was assessed at the surviving fractions (SFs) of 0.01, 0.1, and 0.37, for normal human fibroblasts from three cancer patients. The cells were irradiated ...

The purpose was to identify an optimal set of treatment planning parameters and a minimal necessary dose matrix resolution for treatment planning with spot-scanned protons. Treatment plans based on different combinations of planning parameters and dose grid resolutions (DG) were calculated in a homogeneous geometric phantom for three cubic targets of different size: 8, 64 and 244 cm3. The proto...

During the past half century, an ongoing technological revolution in cancer imaging and radiation treatment has taken us ever closer to the goal of treating localized tumors without harming normal tissues. In his visionary 1946 paper, Harvard physicist Robert Wilson suggested that energetic protons could provide a nearly ideal form of radiotherapy. What makes protons the preferred particle type...

Biological validation of new radiotherapy modalities is essential to understand their therapeutic potential. Antiprotons have been proposed for cancer therapy due to enhanced dose deposition provided by antiproton-nucleon annihilation. We assessed cellular DNA damage and relative biological effectiveness (RBE) of a clinically relevant antiproton beam. Despite a modest LET (~19 keV/μm), antiprot...