Nowadays, Charged Particle Therapy (CPT) using proton and carbon ion is a well established alternative to radiotherapy with photons for cancer treatment in combination (or alternative) with (to) surgical removal and chemotherapy. Helium and oxygen beams are also under consideration due to their favourable dose release characteristics. Yet, the advantages of CPT treatments in the ballistic precision of the dose release are not yet fully exploited. A large fraction of medical physicists still considers the “beam range uncertainty” as one of the main obstacles to CPT becoming mainstream, since large safety factors are required, minimising its potential impact and reducing the therapy effectiveness. At the same time, the neutron radiation component induced in such treatments has to be experimentally characterised with high precision, to improve the evaluation of the insurgence of secondary malignant neoplasms and define the treatment therapeutic window. The MULTIPASS project goal is to develop, build and test the prototype of a compact, small and reliable monitoring device capable of measuring the secondary radiation produced during a CPT treatment allowing for: the check of morphological changes undergone by the patient in different treatment fractions exploiting charged secondary fragments and prompt photons detection; the on-line monitoring of the absorbed dose distribution; the monitoring of induced neutron radiation component (production point and energy). At present, only post-treatment monitoring is foreseen (for a selected number of patients) using PET scanners: no online technical solution nor inter-fractional monitors of the treatment are routinely used in the clinical workflow. Within MULTIPASS a novel technology will be applied to the detection of secondary radiation of different types (prompt photons, protons, neutrons). The proposed detector unit will be a compact tracker matrix of scintillating fibres equipped with custom read-out electronics to be positioned around the patient in a geometrical configuration specific for each patient/treatment optimised using fast Monte Carlo (MC) simulations. The intrinsic nature of the MULTIPASS project is interdisciplinary since it is based on the application of techniques developed in the High Energy Physics and Nuclear Physics particle detection framework to the Radiation Therapy field. The MULTIPASS project goal will be achieved by bringing together the most advanced particle detection and data analysis techniques with the state-of-the-art tools developed for CPT treatments planning. |