Feasibility of the J-PET to monitor the range of therapeutic proton beams.

Purpose: The aim of this work is to investigate the feasibility of the Jagiellonian Positron Emission Tomography (J-PET) scanner for intra-treatment proton beam range monitoring.

Methods: The Monte Carlo simulation studies with GATE and PET image reconstruction with CASToR were performed in order to compare six J-PET scanner geometries. We simulated proton irradiation of a PMMA phantom with a Single Pencil Beam (SPB) and Spread-Out Bragg Peak (SOBP) of various ranges.

Detection of range shifts in proton beam therapy using the J-PET scanner: a patient simulation study.

The Jagiellonian PET (J-PET) technology, based on plastic scintillators, has been proposed as a cost effective tool for detecting range deviations during proton therapy. This study investigates the feasibility of using J-PET for range monitoring by means of a detailed Monte Carlo simulation study of 95 patients who underwent proton therapy at the Cyclotron Centre Bronowice (CCB) in Krakow, Poland. Approach: Discrepancies between prescribed and delivered treatments were artificially introduced in the simulations by means of shifts in patient positioning and in the Hounsfield unit to the relative proton stopping power calibration curve.

GPU accelerated Monte Carlo scoring of positron emitting isotopes produced during proton therapy for PET verification.

Verification of delivered proton therapy treatments is essential for reaping the many benefits of the modality, with the most widely proposedverification technique being the imaging of positron emitting isotopes generated in the patient during treatment using positron emission tomography (PET). The purpose of this work is to reduce the computational resources and time required for simulation of patient activation during proton therapy using the GPU accelerated Monte Carlo code FRED, and to validate the predicted activity against the widely used Monte Carlo code GATE.We implement a continuous scoring approach for the production of positron emitting isotopes within FRED version 5.

ProTheRaMon - a GATE simulation framework for proton therapy range monitoring using PET imaging.

Objective: This paper reports on the implementation and shows examples of the use of the ProTheRaMon framework for simulating the delivery of proton therapy treatment plans and range monitoring using positron emission tomography (PET). ProTheRaMon offers complete processing of proton therapy treatment plans, patient CT geometries, and intra-treatment PET imaging, taking into account therapy and imaging coordinate systems and activity decay during the PET imaging protocol specific to a given proton therapy facility. We present the ProTheRaMon framework and illustrate its potential use case and data processing steps for a patient treated at the Cyclotron Centre Bronowice (CCB) proton therapy center in Krakow, Poland.