ESTRO-EPTN radiation dosimetry guidelines for the acquisition of proton pencil beam modelling data.

Proton therapy (PT) is an advancing radiotherapy modality increasingly integrated into clinical settings, transitioning from research facilities to hospital environments. A critical aspect of the commissioning of a proton pencil beam scanning delivery system is the acquisition of experimental beam data for accurate beam modelling within the treatment planning system (TPS). These guidelines describe in detail the acquisition of proton pencil beam modelling data.

Experimental Comparison of Fiducial Markers Used in Proton Therapy: Study of Different Imaging Modalities and Proton Fluence Perturbations Measured With CMOS Pixel Sensors.

Fiducial markers are used for image guidance to verify the correct positioning of the target for the case of tumors that can suffer interfractional motion during proton therapy. The markers should be visible on daily imaging, but at the same time, they should produce minimal streak artifacts in the CT scans for treatment planning and induce only slight dose perturbations during particle therapy. In this work, these three criteria were experimentally investigated at the Heidelberg Ion Beam Therapy Center.

Methodology paper: a novel phantom setup for commissioning of scanned ion beam delivery and TPS.

Background: Commissioning of treatment planning systems (TPS) and beam delivery for scanned light ion beams is an important quality assurance task. This requires measurement of large sets of high quality dosimetric data in anthropomorphic phantoms to benchmark the TPS and dose delivery under realistic conditions.

Method: A novel measurement setup is described, which allows for an efficient collection of a large set of accurate dose data in complex phantom geometries.

A motorized solid-state phantom for patient-specific dose verification in ion beam radiotherapy.

For regular quality assurance and patient-specific dosimetric verification under non-horizontal gantry angles in ion beam radiotherapy, we developed and commissioned a motorized solid state phantom. The phantom is set up under the selected gantry angle and moves an array of 24 ionization chambers to the measurement position by means of three eccentrically-mounted cylinders. Hence, the phantom allows 3D dosimetry at oblique gantry angles.

Evaluation of different fiducial markers for image-guided radiotherapy and particle therapy.

Modern radiotherapy (RT) techniques are widely used in the irradiation of moving organs. A crucial step in ensuring the correct position of a target structure directly before or during treatment is daily image guidance by computed tomography (CT) or X-ray radiography (image-guided radiotherapy, IGRT). Therefore, combinations of modern irradiation devices and imaging, such as on-board imaging (OBI) with X-rays, or in-room CT such as the tomotherapy system, have been developed.