SU-E-T-610: Impact of Variable Beam Spot Size on Treatment Time in Particle Therapy

Medical Physics
D RiofrioS Luan

Abstract

The dosimetric advantage of particle therapy comes with a much higher infrastructure investment and operation costs. Increasing patient throughput is a key factor to manage operation costs. We investigate the impact of variable beam spot sizes on treatment time and discuss the tradeoffs involved. The following realistic assumptions were used. (1) The beam traveling speed is independent of the beam spot size. (2) The beam spot is a 2D Gaussian. Changing the beam spot size implies varying the standard deviation. (3) The maximum beam intensity is a constant independent of the beam spot size. Increasing the beam spot reduces the fluence. (4) Varying the beam spot size incurs in a reset time penalty.A 2D tumor was used in the study. Dose calculations were based on pencil beam kernels from GEANT4.The total treatment time is divided into the beam travel time, the beam-on time, andthe time for changing the spot size. We found that: (1) Changing the beam spot size has no impact on the beam-on time, because the maximum beam intensity is independentof the beam spot and increasing the beam spot only reduces the fluence. (2) Larger beam spot size shortens the total travel time inversely proportional to the radius of the beam spot. (3) Plans...Continue Reading

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