Ponente
Descripción
In recent years, proton therapy has become a promising technique for cancer treatment. However, proton therapy still has some limitations. On the one hand, there is no accepted standard technique to verify the proton range (pRV), which implies the use of wide safety margins and, therefore, the patient receiving higher dose than necessary. On the other hand, treatment planning systems are performed with x-ray computed tomography (xCT), increasing uncertainty in the determination of relative proton stopping power (RSP) up to 5%.
The objective of the PRIDE (Proton Range and Imaging DEvice) project is to develop a novel multi-detector based scanner that integrates the solution of the two aforementioned problems by working in two modes: proton computed tomography (pCT) and proton range verification (PRV). The PRIDE multi-detector is based on two parts: The tracking detector, which consists of two DSSD detectors and is used to obtain the proton tracks and a total energy scintillator, which consists of a pure LaCl3 scintillating crystal detector and is used to measure the total energy deposited.
The work to be presented will focus on the first in-beam test of a pure LaCl3 scintillator crystal in coaxial configuration for range verification. It shows an outstanding pulse shape discrimination (PSD) capability, being able to distinguish between α, proton and γ particles. This high-quality PSD, together with its relatively high sensitivity to fast neutrons, allow us to perform neutron spectroscopy. This detector was first calibrated using an encapsulated 252Cf radioactive source and then the first tests were carried out at the CMAM accelerator facilities, where its spatial resolution for determine the Bragg peak position was quantified. With these first tests, a spatial resolution of 3 mm was obtained, which is competitive with the spatial resolutions of the techniques currently used. This very good result makes the pure LaCl3 crystal a promising candidate for applications in a mixed field that require gamma/fast neutron discrimination.
