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A special issue of Instruments (ISSN 2410-390X).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 October 2023) | Viewed by 11214

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Special Issue Editor

Prof. Dr. Ivor Fleck

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Guest Editor

Center for Particle Physics, University of Siegen, Walter-Flex-Str. 3, 57072 Siegen, Germany
Interests: experimental particle physics; development of photon and gaseous detectors; medical applications of photon detectors in the MeV range

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

It is my pleasure to announce this Special Issue devoted to applications of particle physics to medicine.

Elementary particles such as photons and electrons are used widely in medical imaging and cancer treatment. In the last few decades, the implementation of detectors and methods in particle physics has helped tremendously in medical applications, e.g., in improving the resolution of images and reducing the dose applied to the patient. Detector components developed for particle physics experiments have been used for medical applications as high efficiencies and good spatial and time resolution are required in both fields. The same holds for analysis techniques developed in particle physics and finding use in medicine. Turnover times have been reduced by close collaborations between particles physics and medicine. It is time to evaluate the contributions of particle physics and the combined effort of both the particle physics and medicine communities to advances in patient imaging and treatment.

In this Special Issue, state-of-the-art overviews as well as recent developments and advances in applications of particle physics in medicine will be collected.

Topics include but are not limited to:

- Positron electron tomography (PET)

- Single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT)

- Particle therapy

- Dose monitoring

- Accelerators for particle therapy

- Radiation therapy

- Radionuclide production

- Development of detectors and their applications in medicine.

- fast detectors

- 10ps challenge

- algorithms for pattern recognition

- multivariant analysis techniques for medical applications

Prof. Dr. Ivor Fleck
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. Instruments is an international peer-reviewed open access quarterly 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 1400 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

instrumentation
particle accelerators
medical application
particle physics
proton therapy
PET
detector development

Published Papers (5 papers)

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Research

20 pages, 3862 KiB

Open AccessFeature PaperArticle

Investigating Slit-Collimator-Produced Carbon Ion Minibeams with High-Resolution CMOS Sensors

by Lennart Volz, Claire-Anne Reidel, Marco Durante, Yolanda Prezado, Christoph Schuy, Uli Weber and Christian Graeff

Instruments 2023, 7(2), 18; https://doi.org/10.3390/instruments7020018 - 06 Jun 2023

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1483

Abstract

Particle minibeam therapy has demonstrated the potential for better healthy tissue sparing due to spatial fractionation of the delivered dose. Especially for heavy ions, the spatial fractionation could enhance the already favorable differential biological effectiveness at the target and the entrance region. Moreover, spatial fractionation could even be a viable option for bringing ions heavier than carbon back into patient application. To understand the effect of minibeam therapy, however, requires careful conduction of pre-clinical experiments, for which precise knowledge of the minibeam characteristics is crucial. This work introduces the use of high-spatial-resolution CMOS sensors to characterize collimator-produced carbon ion minibeams in terms of lateral fluence distribution, secondary fragments, track-averaged linear energy transfer distribution, and collimator alignment. Additional simulations were performed to further analyze the parameter space of the carbon ion minibeams in terms of beam characteristics, collimator positioning, and collimator manufacturing accuracy. Finally, a new concept for reducing the neutron dose to the patient by means of an additional neutron shield added to the collimator setup is proposed and validated in simulation. The carbon ion minibeam collimator characterized in this work is used in ongoing pre-clinical experiments on heavy ion minibeam therapy at the GSI. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Medical Applications of Particle Physics)

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25 pages, 8188 KiB

Open AccessArticle

A Beam Monitor for Ion Beam Therapy Based on HV-CMOS Pixel Detectors

by Alexander Dierlamm, Matthias Balzer, Felix Ehrler, Ulrich Husemann, Roland Koppenhöfer, Ivan Perić, Martin Pittermann, Bogdan Topko, Alena Weber, Stephan Brons, Jürgen Debus, Nicole Grau, Thomas Hansmann, Oliver Jäkel, Sebastian Klüter and Jakob Naumann

Instruments 2023, 7(1), 9; https://doi.org/10.3390/instruments7010009 - 09 Feb 2023

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 2287

Abstract

Particle therapy is a well established clinical treatment of tumors. More than one hundred particle therapy centers are in operation world-wide. The advantage of using hadrons like protons or carbon ions as particles for tumor irradiation is the distinct peak in the depth-dependent energy deposition, which can be exploited to accurately deposit doses in the tumor cells. To guarantee this, high accuracy in monitoring and control of the particle beam is of the utmost importance. Before the particle beam enters the patient, it traverses a monitoring system which has to give fast feedback to the beam control system on position and dose rate of the beam while minimally interacting with the beam. The multi-wire chambers mostly used as beam position monitors have their limitations when a fast response time is required (drift time). Future developments such as MRI-guided ion beam therapy pose additional challenges for the beam monitoring system, such as tolerance of magnetic fields and acoustic noise (vibrations). Solid-state detectors promise to overcome these limitations and the higher resolution they offer can create additional benefits. This article presents the evaluation of an HV-CMOS detector for beam monitoring, provides results from feasibility studies in a therapeutic beam, and summarizes the concepts towards the final large-scale assembly and readout system. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Medical Applications of Particle Physics)

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17 pages, 10179 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Measuring the Beam Energy in Proton Therapy Facilities Using ATLAS IBL Pixel Detectors

by Isabelle Schilling, Claus Maximilian Bäcker, Christian Bäumer, Carina Behrends, Marius Hötting, Jana Hohmann, Kevin Kröninger, Beate Timmermann and Jens Weingarten

Instruments 2022, 6(4), 80; https://doi.org/10.3390/instruments6040080 - 29 Nov 2022

Viewed by 1876

Abstract

The accurate measurement of the beam range in the frame of quality assurance (QA) is a requirement for clinical use of a proton therapy machine. Conventionally used detectors mostly estimate the range by measuring the depth dose distribution of the protons. In this paper, we use pixel detectors designed for individual particle tracking in the high-radiation environment of the ATLAS experiment at LHC. The detector measures the deposited energy in the sensor for individual protons. Due to the limited dynamic energy range of the readout chip, several ways to measure the proton energy or range are examined. A staircase phantom is placed on the detector to perform an energy calibration relative to the NIST PSTAR stopping power database. In addition, track length measurements are performed using the detector aligned parallel with the beam axis to investigate the Linear Energy Transfer (LET) per pixel along the trajectory of individual protons. In this proof-of-principle study, we show that this radiation hardness detector can successfully be used to determine the initial proton energy for protons impinging on the sensor with an energy below 44 MeV after the range shifters. It becomes clear that an improvement of the energy resolution of the readout chip is required for clinical use. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Medical Applications of Particle Physics)

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14 pages, 7340 KiB

Open AccessArticle

A Thermal Sublimation Generator of ^131mXe

by Karolina Kulesz, Nikolay Azaryan, Mikołaj Baranowski, Mateusz Jerzy Chojnacki, Ulli Köster, Razvan Lica, Sorin Gabriel Pascu, Renaud Blaise Jolivet and Magdalena Kowalska

Instruments 2022, 6(4), 76; https://doi.org/10.3390/instruments6040076 - 16 Nov 2022

Viewed by 1521

Abstract

Stable and unstable isotopes of the heavy noble gas xenon find use in various medical applications. However, apart from

^{133}

Xe, used for Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography, radioactive isotopes of xenon are currently complicated to obtain in small quantities. With the GAMMA-MRI [...] Read more.

Stable and unstable isotopes of the heavy noble gas xenon find use in various medical applications. However, apart from

^{133}

Xe, used for Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography, radioactive isotopes of xenon are currently complicated to obtain in small quantities. With the GAMMA-MRI project in mind, we investigated a thermal sublimation generator of the long-lived excited state (isomer)

^{131 m}

Xe. This production method utilized the decay of

^{131}

I, obtained commercially from a hospital supplier in the form of Na

^{131}

I powder. Heat treatments of the Na

^{131}

I powder and cryogenic trapping of released

^{131 m}

Xe allowed us to collect up to 88% of the produced xenon. Our method provides an isomeric mixture of

^{131 m}

Xe and

^{131}

Xe. With improvements in scalability and chemical purification, this method could be a cost-effective source of

^{131 m}

Xe for small-scale experiments. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Medical Applications of Particle Physics)

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8 pages, 1823 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Experimental Determination of Excitation Function Curves through the Measurement of Thick Target Yields in Liquid Targets: The Examples of the ⁶⁸Zn(p,n)⁶⁸Ga and ⁶⁴Zn(p,α)⁶¹Cu Nuclear Reactions

by Sergio J. C. do Carmo and Francisco Alves

Instruments 2022, 6(1), 3; https://doi.org/10.3390/instruments6010003 - 07 Jan 2022

Viewed by 2254

Abstract

The present work describes a method to determine excitation function curves and, therefore, cross-sections, making use of the irradiation of liquid targets at distinct energies in a biomedical cyclotron. The method relies on the derivative of experimentally measured thick target yield curves to determine the corresponding excitation function curves. The technique is presented as a valid and practical alternative to the commonly used activation method combined with the stack monitor technique, whose implementation in liquid targets offers practical difficulties. The working principle is exemplified by presenting the results obtained for the clinically relevant ⁶⁸Zn(p,n)⁶⁸Ga and the ⁶⁴Zn(p,α)⁶¹Cu nuclear reactions, obtained though the irradiation of liquid targets containing dissolved natural zinc. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Medical Applications of Particle Physics)

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