gms | German Medical Science

48th Meeting of the Particle Therapy Co-Operative Group

Particle Therapy Co-Operative Group (PTCOG)

28.09. - 03.10.2009, Heidelberg

Development of a new TPS kernel for hadrontherapy

Meeting Abstract

  • A. Attili - INFN (Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare), Torino, Italy
  • F. Bourhaleb - Fisica Sperimentale, Università degli Studi di Torino, Torino, Italy
  • G. Russo - Fisica Sperimentale, Università degli Studi di Torino, Torino, Italy
  • E. Schmitt - Fisica Sperimentale, Università degli Studi di Torino, Torino, Italy
  • F. Marchetto - INFN (Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare), Torino, Italy
  • V. Monaco - Fisica Sperimentale, Università degli Studi di Torino, Torino, Italy
  • C. Peroni - Fisica Sperimentale, Università degli Studi di Torino, Torino, Italy

PTCOG 48. Meeting of the Particle Therapy Co-Operative Group. Heidelberg, 28.09.-03.10.2009. Düsseldorf: German Medical Science GMS Publishing House; 2009. Doc09ptcog014

doi: 10.3205/09ptcog014, urn:nbn:de:0183-09ptcog0149

Published: September 24, 2009

© 2009 Attili et al.
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Outline

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Background: Several technologies developed by the Italian Institute of Nuclear Physics (INFN) for pure physics research have been successfully applied to novel medical imaging and particle therapy techniques. The partnership with leading industries of medical equipment has always been crucial for such a success. Within this framework, the implementation of a Treatment Planning System (TPS) for hadrontherapy is being developed in partnership with the IBA Group (through associated Elekta-CMS). The TPS is designed for therapy with, but not exclusively, 12C ion beams with active voxel scanning method. INFN committed different tasks to the TPS implementation such as: radiobiology measurements, nuclear fragmentation experiments, Monte Carlo (MC) code development, TPS kernel and optimization code implementation. This presentation focuses on the recent progresses on the implementation of the TPS kernel prototype.

Materials and methods: In order to obtain a fast and efficient plan optimization, the biological and physical dose distributions are computed by the TPS kernel using pre-calculated look-up tables, interpolated and mapped on the CT voxels by a ray-tracing procedure. The tables are obtained from an exhaustive database of MC simulations. The simulations are performed using the Fluka code for the beam particle tracking and fragment distributions, and with a MC implementation of the Local Effect Model (LEM 1, 2 and 3) for the evaluation of the biological effects in terms of cell survivals. The radiobiological simulations and the TPS kernel are implemented using the C++ programming language.

Results: One of the most important aspects of the TPS is the database structure and the sampling method. In the first phase of the development, we implemented the simulation database on which the optimization process will strongly depend. The derived TPS kernel prototype includes full biological dose optimization and features multi-field simultaneous optimization using an arbitrary number of beams with different directions and energies. It also accounts for different beam-line set-ups, for the different biological response for a multi-tissue optimization and includes the automatic optimization of the directions of the beams. A numerical validation of the implemented prototype was performed by comparing the outputs of the TPS kernel with full MC radiobiological simulations.

Conclusions: The development of the TPS kernel is in its prototyping phase. The planned features are already included in the design of this prototype. Further advanced features (e.g. 4D optimization) are currently under study. The cell survival and particle datasets obtained via simulations will be validated by radiobiological and nuclear fragmentation measurements within planned INFN experiments. Some of these experiments will be performed in scientific collaboration with other European Institutes (GSI, ESA, CEA).