Abstract
Purpose
In proton therapy, imaging of proton-induced positrons is a useful method to monitor the proton beam distribution after therapy. Usually, a positron emission tomography (PET) system installed in or near the proton beam treatment room is used for this purpose. However, a PET system is sometimes too large and expensive for this purpose. We developed a small field-of-view (FOV) gamma camera for high-energy gamma photons and used it for monitoring the proton-induced positron distribution.
Methods
The gamma camera used 0.85 mm × 0.85 mm × 10 mm Ce:Gd3Al2Ga3O12 (GAGG) pixels arranged in 20 × 20 matrix to form a scintillator block, which was optically coupled to a 1-inch-square position-sensitive photomultiplier tube (PSPMT). The GAGG detector was encased in a 20-mm thick container and a pinhole collimator was mounted on its front. The gamma camera was set 1.2 m from the 35 cm × 35 cm × 5 cm plastic phantom in the proton therapy treatment room, and proton beams were irradiated to the phantom with two proton energies.
Results
The gamma camera had spatial resolution of ~6.7 cm and sensitivity of 3.2 × 10−7 at 1 m from the collimator surface. For both proton energies, positron distribution in the phantom could be imaged by the gamma camera with 10-min acquisition. The lengths of the range of protons measured from the images were almost identical to the simulation results.
Conclusions
These results indicate that the developed high-energy gamma camera is useful for imaging positron distributions in proton therapy.
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Acknowledgments
Measurements of proton beam in this work were performed at the Nagoya Proton Therapy Center. We would also like to thank the clinical team for allowing beam time for our experiments, and thank all of the staff who helped us prepare and carry out the irradiations.
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Yamamoto, S., Toshito, T., Komori, M. et al. Monitoring of positron using high-energy gamma camera for proton therapy. Ann Nucl Med 29, 268–275 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12149-014-0936-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12149-014-0936-4