Dosimetric Study of Momentum Analysis System in a High Energy Proton Therapy System

EasyChair Preprint 9972

Abstract

Recently, many worldwide leader societies have tried to develop their proton therapy technology. It strives to make proton therapy available to all cancer patients who could benefit from it to improve their quality of life. This is a shared purpose with radiation oncologists, medical physicists, radiotherapists, and hospital directors around the world. The introduction of proton therapy systems with the adjustments of the momentum analysis system might have clinical consequences. The momentum analysis system normally alters the energy of the clinical proton beam, and hence the shape and position of the Bragg peak. FLUKA, a Monte Carlo-based software was used to simulate different beam setups by dropping the proton beam in a water phantom. The Bragg peak was read out and compared to the Bragg peak with different setup simulations. The results have shown that the Bragg peak is changed for a proton therapy system with and without a modulator for all the possible tumor depths. The results obtained showed that the position of the Bragg peak can be changed from z = 31.4 cm for deep tumors such as prostate to z = 2.6 cm for spinal axis tumors by just changing the depth of modulator from ΔZ modulator, PMMA = 5 to ΔZmodulator, PMMA = 30 cm for energy 250 MeV. It is recommended that this potential dosimetric consequence is investigated further for clinics that are interested in obtaining such a proton therapy system.

Keyphrases: Bragg peak, FLUKA, dose distribution, modulator, proton therapy

@booklet{EasyChair:9972,
  author    = {Abdelkrim Zeghari and Rajaa Cherkaoui El Moursli and Rahal Saaidi},
  title     = {Dosimetric Study of Momentum Analysis System in a High Energy Proton Therapy System},
  howpublished = {EasyChair Preprint 9972},
  year      = {EasyChair, 2023}}