PLASTIC SCINTILLATOR BASED 2D DETECTOR FOR PHOTON RADIOTHERAPY: PRELIMINARY RESULTS.

A proof-of-concept study of a new detector based on a thin plastic scintillator monitored by a Charge-Coupled Device (CCD) camera designed for monitoring and characterisation of Linac photon beams is presented. The response of the detector is compared with radiochromic film using 6 and 18 MV radiotherapeutic beams. We have observed: (i) all instruments survived the secondary radiation fields during Linac operation, (ii) it was possible to process the measured data using statistical techniques and (iii) the processed data from the CCD camera qualitatively correspond to film dosimetry results. A statistical technique based on the selection of minimal values provides the clearest results. Quantitatively, CCD and film results can only be compared as 6 to 18 MV response rates. We have observed that the rates from the CCD data are systematically higher than the rates from film dosimetry. Differences are not too high, namely 1.9-2.4 times the combined standard deviation.

The European Joint Research Project UHDpulse - Metrology for advanced radiotherapy using particle beams with ultra-high pulse dose rates.

UHDpulse - Metrology for advanced radiotherapy using particle beams with ultra-high pulse dose rates is a recently started European Joint Research Project with the aim to develop and improve dosimetry standards for FLASH radiotherapy, very high energy electron (VHEE) radiotherapy and laser-driven medical accelerators. This paper gives a short overview about the current state of developments of radiotherapy with FLASH electrons and protons, very high energy electrons as well as laser-driven particles and the related challenges in dosimetry due to the ultra-high dose rate during the short radiation pulses. We summarize the objectives and plans of the UHDpulse project and present the 16 participating partners.

A high-resolution PET demonstrator using a silicon "magnifying glass".

To assist ongoing investigations of the limits of the tradeoff between spatial resolution and noise in PET imaging, several PET instruments based on silicon-pad detectors have been developed. The latest is a segment of a dual-ring device to demonstrate that excellent reconstructed image resolution can be achieved with a scanner that uses high-resolution detectors placed close to the object of interest or surrounding a small field-of-view in combination with detectors having modest resolution at larger radius. The outer ring of our demonstrator comprises conventional BGO block detectors scavenged from a clinical PET scanner and located at a 500mm radius around a 50mm diameter field-of-view. The inner detector-in contrast to the high-Z scintillator typically used in PET-is based on silicon-pad detectors located at 70mm nominal radius. Each silicon detector has 512 1.4mm x 1.4mm x 1mm detector elements in a 16 x 32 array and is read out using VATA GP7 ASICs (Gamma Medica-Ideas, Northridge, CA). Even though virtually all interactions of 511 keV annihilation photons in silicon are Compton-scatter, both high spatial resolution and reasonable sensitivity appears possible. The system has demonstrated resolution of ~0.7mm FWHM with Na-22 for coincidences having the highest intrinsic resolution (silicon-silicon) and 5-6mm FWHM for the lowest resolution BGO-BGO coincidences. Spatial resolution for images reconstructed from the mixed silicon-BGO coincidences is ~1.5mm FWHM demonstrating the "magnifying-glass" concept.