Program Information
Investigation of MRI Guided Proton Therapy
JS Li*, Fox Chase Cancer Center, Philadelphia, PA
Presentations
SU-E-J-201 (Sunday, July 12, 2015) 3:00 PM - 6:00 PM Room: Exhibit Hall
Purpose: Image-guided radiation therapy has been employed for cancer treatment to improve the tumor localization accuracy. Radiation therapy with proton beams requires more on this accuracy because the proton beam has larger uncertainty and dramatic dose variation along the beam direction. Among all the image modalities, magnetic-resonance image (MRI) is the best for soft tissue delineation and real time motion monitoring. In this work, we investigated the behavior of the proton beam in magnetic field with Monte Carlo simulations.
Methods: A proton Monte Carlo platform, TOPAS, was used for this investigation. Dose calculations were performed with this platform in a 30cmx30cmx30cm water phantom for both pencil and broad proton beams with different energies (120, 150 and 180MeV) in different magnetic fields (0.5T, 1T and 3T). The isodose distributions, dose profiles in lateral and beam direction were evaluated. The shifts of the Bragg peak in different magnetic fields for different proton energies were compared and the magnetic field effects on the characters of the dose distribution were analyzed.
Results: Significant effects of magnetic field have been observed on the proton beam dose distributions, especially for magnetic field of 1T and up. The effects are more significant for higher energy proton beam because higher energy protons travel longer distance in the magnetic field. The Bragg peak shift in the lateral direction is about 38mm for 180MeV and 11mm for 120MeV proton beams in 3T magnetic field. The peak positions are retracted back for 6mm and 2mm, respectively. The effect on the beam penumbra and dose falloff at the distal edge of the Bragg peak is negligible.
Conclusion: Though significant magnetic effects on dose distribution have been observed for proton beams, MRI guided proton therapy is feasible because the magnetic effects on dose is predictable and can be considered in patient dose calculation.
Contact Email: