Alexander Schilling

"Evaluation of A Digital Tracking Calorimeter for In-Situ Range Verification during Particle Therapy"

When protons or heavier ions are used for radiation treatment, it is paramount to modulate the beam correctly in order to place the Bragg peak inside the tumor region. To make sure the treatment is carried out as planned, in-situ range verification is performed. Thus far, range verification requires additional devices in the treatment room. Range verification could instead be performed based on secondary charged particles with a detector meant for proton computed tomography (pCT), which may already be available in the beam delivery room. The Digital Tracking Calorimeter (DTC) designed by the Bergen pCT collaboration is one such device, which uses a layered structure of semiconductor detectors and absorbers in order to simultaneously track protons and perform calorimetry. However, range verification based on secondary charged particles has been limited to carbon therapy because of the increased readout yield. This work presents a feasibility study for proton therapy range verification based on secondary charged particles using the DTC as well as a comparison of the precision achievable with protons and carbon ions by applying regression models to predict the beam range with Monte Carlo-simulated data. Results show that the precision for carbon ions is significantly better despite having 100 times fewer primaries simulated, due to the much higher readout yield.

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