Ion radiotherapy as a treatment for cancer is increasingly used worldwide, particularly with protons. Heavy ions have high linear energy transfer (LET) compared to x-ray, which means that ionizations tend to be locally concentrated around the particle track. This, in turn, corresponds to a greater capability of producing lethal damage to the DNA, eventually leading to chromosome aberrations...
A new detection system for microdosimetry has been developed and successfully tested at the Orsay Proton Therapy Center (CPO, France). It is based on novel silicon 3D-cylindrical microdetectors designed and manufactured at the Centro Nacional de Microelectrónica (IMB-CNM, CSIC) in Barcelona, Spain. The microdetectors have a cylindrical shape with a size comparable to that of the nuclei of...
Proton therapy is a modality of external radiotherapy that has the potential to provide state-of-the-art dose conformality in the tumor area, since protons have a limited range and deposit most of their energy at the end of their path, in the so-called Bragg peak region. Therefore, it can reduce possible adverse effects on surrounding organs at risk. However, uncertainties in the exact...
Recent preclinical studies in mice and other animal models have demonstrated a protective effect of FLASH (very high dose-rate) radiotherapy in healthy tissues, while apparently not compromising its curative ability. Since clinical proton accelerators still require of hardware adaptation to produce FLASH rates, biological experiments on FLASH proton therapy (FLASH-PT) can be conducted on...
During the last years, ultrahigh dose irradiation (>=40 Gy/s), also known as FLASH-RT, has emerged as a revolutionary technique with the potential to change the current radiotherapy paradigm. Compared to conventional dose rate radiotherapy (CONV-RT), it spares normal tissue while keeping an equivalent or superior tumoricidal effect. In vitro and in vivo studies have shown that oxygen plays a...
In proton therapy, PET range verification requires a comparison of the measured and expected $\beta^{+}$ activity distributions produced by the beam in the body of the patient by means of nuclear reactions. The accuracy of the expected activity distributions depends on that of the Monte Carlo simulations, and hence by that of the underlying cross sections data [1]. These are not available in...
The cancer treatment technique of proton therapy has more than 60 years history and recently arrived to Spain. It allows for a more selective treatment of tumors since higher dose is concentrated in the region where the protons stop, whereas far less dose is deposited in the surrounding tissue as compared to radiotherapy with X- or -rays. In this context, a system of imaging and dose...
Although the use of ion beams in cancer therapy has experienced a significant progress in the last decades, it is still needed to gain further basic knowledge on the physical processes underlying hadrontherapy in order to better understand and improve it [1]. These involve different space, time and energy scales, spanning from the macroscopic propagation of the ion beam (with the subsequent...
