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Applied Sciences
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Beam Diagnostics for Medical Application
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Beam Diagnostics for Medical Application

A special issue of Applied Sciences (ISSN 2076-3417). This special issue belongs to the section "Applied Biosciences and Bioengineering".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (20 June 2021) | Viewed by 15031

Special Issue Editor

Prof. Dr. Paola Scampoli

E-Mail Website1 Website2
Guest Editor
1. Dipartimento di Fisica “Ettore Pancini", Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II, 80126 Naples, Italy
2. Laboratory for High Energy Physics (LHEP), University of Bern, CH-3012 Bern, Switzerland
Interests: medical physics; radiation biophysics; particle detectors

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Beam diagnostics is a key subject in the field of medical accelerators that, in dealing with patient health, requires very stringent conditions in terms of beam delivery, dose assessment, and isotope production, to name but a few issues.

Although particle accelerators were proposed for medical applications soon after the invention of the cyclotron by Edward Lawrence in 1930, it is only in the last thirty years that we have witnessed the extraordinary spread of their use in medical facilities. Today, we have thousands of accelerators all over the world, both for therapy or diagnosis purposes and they cover different types of machines: linear accelerators, cyclotrons, synchrotrons, or synchrocyclotrons.

Given the particular requirements for medical applications, all of the beams must be carefully optimized. Indeed, precise knowledge of the beam parameters guarantees, for example, the best beam delivery to the patient in the case of radiotherapy or hadrontherapy and assures the most favorable production of radioisotopes in terms of quality and quantity for nuclear medicine.

A deep knowledge of the beam parameters is then essential to advance on the facility performance and also to enlarge the possible applications to improve patient health.

In this Special Issue, we encourage the submission of cutting-edge original research works in the field of beam diagnostics for medical applications, and, in particular, on the most recent instrumentation and technology to improve beam diagnostics. We expect to receive contributions from different medical application areas, such as therapy or diagnosis. Comprehensive review papers are also welcome.

Prof. Paola Scampoli
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Applied Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • Accelerators
  • linear accelerators
  • accelerators for medicine
  • beam diagnostics
  • beam instrumentation
  • beam parameters
  • radiation therapy
  • hadrontherapy
  • isotope production
  • theragnostics
  • medical physics
  • nuclear technology.

Published Papers (5 papers)

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Research

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12 pages, 7444 KiB  
Article
A Novel Three-Dimensional Non-Destructive Beam-Monitoring Detector
by Carolina Belver-Aguilar, Saverio Braccini, Tommaso Stefano Carzaniga, Andreas Gsponer, Philipp Daniel Häffner, Paola Scampoli and Matthias Schmid
Appl. Sci. 2020, 10(22), 8217; https://doi.org/10.3390/app10228217 - 20 Nov 2020
Cited by 8 | Viewed by 1624
Abstract
A novel three-dimensional non-destructive beam monitor named π3 was conceived, realized and tested. It is based on a thin aluminum foil coated with P47 scintillating material mounted on a support, together with a miniaturized CCD camera, both moving along the beam axis. [...] Read more.
A novel three-dimensional non-destructive beam monitor named π3 was conceived, realized and tested. It is based on a thin aluminum foil coated with P47 scintillating material mounted on a support, together with a miniaturized CCD camera, both moving along the beam axis. This detector allows reconstructing of the beam distribution along the beam path, providing either an on-line video or a graphical reconstruction of the beam envelope in 3D. The π3 detector is a general-purpose instrument suitable for any ion accelerator facility. As it is constructed with non-magnetic materials, it can be used to investigate the behavior of the beam inside beam optics components such as magnets. In this paper, we report the development of the first prototype of the π3 detector, its associated software and the results of the beam tests performed at the Bern medical cyclotron laboratory. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Beam Diagnostics for Medical Application)
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14 pages, 5943 KiB  
Article
Fiber-Optic Bragg Gratings for Temperature and Pressure Measurements in Isotope Production Targets for Nuclear Medicine
by Michael Bakaic, Matthew Hanna, Cyril Hnatovsky, Dan Grobnic, Stephen Mihailov, S. Stefan Zeisler and Cornelia Hoehr
Appl. Sci. 2020, 10(13), 4610; https://doi.org/10.3390/app10134610 - 03 Jul 2020
Cited by 8 | Viewed by 2260
Abstract
A Bragg grating inscribed into an inorganic optical fiber was tested in proton and neutron fields up to doses of 472 Gy. Observation showed that radiation had no effect on the performance of the Fiber Bragg Grating (FBG) used as a gauge measuring [...] Read more.
A Bragg grating inscribed into an inorganic optical fiber was tested in proton and neutron fields up to doses of 472 Gy. Observation showed that radiation had no effect on the performance of the Fiber Bragg Grating (FBG) used as a gauge measuring temperature and pressure. The FBG sensor was subsequently employed to measure the temperature and pressure inside a liquid isotope production target for nuclear medicine. The fiber Bragg grating measured the temperature and pressure of a water target as a 12 MeV proton beam impinged on it in real time and was tested with beam currents of up to 20 µA. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Beam Diagnostics for Medical Application)
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11 pages, 5279 KiB  
Article
Ce- and B-Doped Silica Fibers for Monitoring Low-Energy Proton Beams on a Medical Cyclotron
by Cornelia Hoehr, Matthew Hanna, Stefan Zeisler, Crystal Penner, Matthew Stokely and Morgan Dehnel
Appl. Sci. 2020, 10(13), 4488; https://doi.org/10.3390/app10134488 - 29 Jun 2020
Cited by 6 | Viewed by 1520
Abstract
Many medical isotopes can be produced on a small cyclotron. The alignment and profiles of low-energy proton beams from cyclotrons used for medical radioisotope production, such as the TR13 cyclotron at TRIUMF, Canada, cannot be directly quantified during dose delivery with simultaneous constant [...] Read more.
Many medical isotopes can be produced on a small cyclotron. The alignment and profiles of low-energy proton beams from cyclotrons used for medical radioisotope production, such as the TR13 cyclotron at TRIUMF, Canada, cannot be directly quantified during dose delivery with simultaneous constant feedback and sharp spatial resolutions. Doped silica fibers are a potential solution that has been tested at TRIUMF. To measure the effects of irradiation inside an isotope production target, we attached fibers to the outside of an 18O gas target and measured the light output during irradiation. Different dopants, fiber diameters, and target materials were investigated. It was found that 200 µm diameter Ce- and B-doped fibers produce signals linearly proportional to the beam current. This only deviated when the target was moved such that the beam was steered into the target wall, increasing the production of prompt radiation and causing the beam current to decrease but the fiber signal to increase. With the technique described here, the beam can be monitored on the target, including its steering and its overall alignment with the target. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Beam Diagnostics for Medical Application)
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Review

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11 pages, 355 KiB  
Review
FLASH Irradiation with Proton Beams: Beam Characteristics and Their Implications for Beam Diagnostics
by Konrad P. Nesteruk and Serena Psoroulas
Appl. Sci. 2021, 11(5), 2170; https://doi.org/10.3390/app11052170 - 02 Mar 2021
Cited by 11 | Viewed by 3027
Abstract
FLASH irradiations use dose-rates orders of magnitude higher than commonly used in patient treatments. Such irradiations have shown interesting normal tissue sparing in cell and animal experiments, and, as such, their potential application to clinical practice is being investigated. Clinical accelerators used in [...] Read more.
FLASH irradiations use dose-rates orders of magnitude higher than commonly used in patient treatments. Such irradiations have shown interesting normal tissue sparing in cell and animal experiments, and, as such, their potential application to clinical practice is being investigated. Clinical accelerators used in proton therapy facilities can potentially provide FLASH beams; therefore, the topic is of high interest in this field. However, a clear FLASH effect has so far been observed in presence of high dose rates (>40 Gy/s), high delivered dose (tens of Gy), and very short irradiation times (<300 ms). Fulfilling these requirements poses a serious challenge to the beam diagnostics system of clinical facilities. We will review the status and proposed solutions, from the point of view of the beam definitions for FLASH and their implications for beam diagnostics. We will devote particular attention to the topics of beam monitoring and control, as well as absolute dose measurements, since finding viable solutions in these two aspects will be of utmost importance to guarantee that the technique can be adopted quickly and safely in clinical practice. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Beam Diagnostics for Medical Application)
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17 pages, 1163 KiB  
Review
Radiochromic Films for the Two-Dimensional Dose Distribution Assessment
by Pierluigi Casolaro
Appl. Sci. 2021, 11(5), 2132; https://doi.org/10.3390/app11052132 - 28 Feb 2021
Cited by 18 | Viewed by 5599
Abstract
Radiochromic films are mainly used for two-dimensional dose verification in photon, electron, and proton therapy treatments. Moreover, the radiochromic film types available today allow their use in a wide dose range, corresponding to applications from low-medical diagnostics to high-dose beam profile measurements in [...] Read more.
Radiochromic films are mainly used for two-dimensional dose verification in photon, electron, and proton therapy treatments. Moreover, the radiochromic film types available today allow their use in a wide dose range, corresponding to applications from low-medical diagnostics to high-dose beam profile measurements in charged particle medical accelerators. An in-depth knowledge of the characteristics of radiochromic films, of their operating principles, and of the dose reading techniques is of paramount importance to exploit all the features of this interesting and versatile radiation detection system. This short review focuses on these main aspects by considering the most recent works on the subject. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Beam Diagnostics for Medical Application)
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