Validation of automated complex head and neck treatment planning with pencil beam scanning proton therapy.

Background: Pencil beam scanning (PBS) proton therapy offers dosimetric advantages for several treatment sites, including head and neck (H&N). However, to achieve the optimal target coverage and robustness, these plans can be complex and time consuming to develop and optimize. Automating the treatment planning process can ensure a high-quality and standardized plan, reduce burden to the planner, and decrease time-to-treatment.

Scripted spot removal in PBS proton therapy planning.

Background: It is well known in proton therapy that the relative biological effectiveness (RBE) is not constant across the entire Bragg peak, with higher RBE at the distal end of the Bragg peak due to higher linear energy transfer (LET). Treatment planning systems are moving toward LET optimization to mitigate this potentially higher biological impact at a track end. However, using a simple script, proton users can begin to simulate this process by deleting spots from critical structures during optimization.

Proton range verification in homogeneous materials through acoustic measurements.

Clinical proton beam quality assurance (QA) requires a simple and accurate method to measure the proton beam Bragg peak (BP) depth. Protoacoustics, the measurement of the pressure waves emitted by thermal expansion resulting from proton dose deposition, may be used to obtain the depth of the BP in a phantom by measuring the time-of-flight of the pressure wave. Rectangular and cylindrical phantoms of different materials (aluminum, lead, and polyethylene) were used for protoacoustic studies.