A focused very high energy electron beam for fractionated stereotactic radiotherapy

An electron beam of very high energy (50–250 MeV) can potentially produce a more favourable radiotherapy dose distribution compared to a state-of-the-art photon based radiotherapy technique. To produce an electron beam of sufficiently high energy to allow for a long penetration depth (several cm), v...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Scientific reports 2021-03, Vol.11 (1), p.5844-5844, Article 5844
Main Authors: Svendsen, Kristoffer, Guénot, Diego, Svensson, Jonas Björklund, Petersson, Kristoffer, Persson, Anders, Lundh, Olle
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
639/166/985
639/624/1020
639/766/1960/1135
639/766/25
692/4028
Clinical Medicine
Dose Fractionation, Radiation
Electromagnetic Phenomena
Electrons
Energy
Humanities and Social Sciences
Klinisk medicin
Medical and Health Sciences
Medicin och hälsovetenskap
Mimicry
multidisciplinary
Particle Accelerators
Phantoms, Imaging
Radiation therapy
Radiologi och bildbehandling
Radiology, Nuclear Medicine and Medical Imaging
Radiometry
Radiosurgery
Science
Science (multidisciplinary)
Slabs
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:An electron beam of very high energy (50–250 MeV) can potentially produce a more favourable radiotherapy dose distribution compared to a state-of-the-art photon based radiotherapy technique. To produce an electron beam of sufficiently high energy to allow for a long penetration depth (several cm), very large accelerating structures are needed when using conventional radio-frequency technology, which may not be possible due to economical or spatial constraints. In this paper, we show transport and focusing of laser wakefield accelerated electron beams with a maximum energy of 160 MeV using electromagnetic quadrupole magnets in a point-to-point imaging configuration, yielding a spatial uncertainty of less than 0.1 mm, a total charge variation below 1 % and a focal spot of 2.3 × 2.6 mm 2 . The electron beam was focused to control the depth dose distribution and to improve the dose conformality inside a phantom of cast acrylic slabs and radiochromic film. The phantom was irradiated from 36 different angles to obtain a dose distribution mimicking a stereotactic radiotherapy treatment, with a peak fractional dose of 2.72 Gy and a total maximum dose of 65 Gy. This was achieved with realistic constraints, including 23 cm of propagation through air before any dose deposition in the phantom.
ISSN:2045-2322
2045-2322
DOI:10.1038/s41598-021-85451-8