First in-beam tests on simultaneous PET and Compton imaging aimed at quasi-real-time range verification in hadron therapy

¹ Instituto de Física Corpuscular, CSIC-University of Valencia, Valencia, Spain
² University of Seville, Seville, 41012 Spain
³ Centro Nacional de Aceleradores (U. Sevilla, CSIC, Junta de Andalucía), Sevilla, 41092 Spain.

^* Corresponding author: javier.balibrea@ific.uv.es

Published online: 11 April 2022

Abstract

Hadron therapy with protons has advantages with respect to conventional radiotherapy because of the maximization of the dose at the Bragg peak. As a drawback, and because of different systematic uncertainty sources, a quasi-real time monitoring for the proton range verification is required to reduce safety margins. In this respect, two gamma-ray imaging techniques are pursued: prompt gamma-ray monitoring and positron-annihilation tomography (PET). The promising prompt gamma-ray monitoring requires detection systems with large detection efficiency, high time resolution, compactness, fast response, low sensitivity to neutron-induced backgrounds and powerful image reconstruction capabilities. On the other hand, in-beam PET surveys require additionally good γ-ray position reconstruction resolution. In this contribution we show that, to a large extent, both approaches can be simultaneously accomplished by using an array of Compton cameras conveniently arranged around the target volume. Here we demonstrate experimentally the suitability of such an array, named i-TED, for PG monitoring in ion-range monitoring during Hadron Therapy, in-beam PET survey and β⁺ production yield measurements capability. Furthermore, with the use of GPUs, a quasi-real time PG monitoring and in-beam PET can be achieved.