Shaikh, Saad;
(2023)
QuARC – A Quality Assurance Range Calorimeter for Proton Therapy.
Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).
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Abstract
Proton beam therapy (PBT) is a type of radiotherapy used to treat cancerous tumours. Compared to conventional X-ray radiotherapy, PBT offers significant advantages due to its superior dose conformity, allowing better sparing of healthy tissue. This dose conformity is due to the well-defined range of protons in matter. The proton range in water is a key parameter in optimising patient safety and is measured everyday during daily quality assurance (QA). However, this is a lengthy process that takes valuable time away from patient treatment. This project covers the design and construction of a scintillator- based detector for range measurements in PBT to reduce the time taken for daily QA from an hour down to a few minutes. This work focuses on the implementation of a new photodiode-based front-end data acquisition (DAQ) system and mechanical setup for the detector. Overhauling the DAQ system increased the detector data- rate from 25 Hz to 6 kHz, allowing real-time tracking of scanned treatment delivery, and increased the dynamic range of the detector by several orders of magnitude, allowing for proton range measurements in the FLASH (ultra-high dose rate) regime. Optimisation of the back-end data analysis process introduced real-time function fitting to facilitate live proton range reconstruction to sub-mm precision at up to 5 Hz. A total of seven experiments were conducted across several different PBT facilities to optimise the detector setup and scintillator composition, with the range accuracy of the detector found to be within 0.5 mm. FLASH PBT experiments found the detector able to measure beam currents up to 50 nA, though some non-linearity was observed. A specialised, compact version of the detector was also developed for the successful range measurements of spread-out Bragg peaks. Overall, this new device presents an attractive alternative to current commercial offerings for fast, accurate proton range QA measurements.
| Type: | Thesis (Doctoral) |
|---|---|
| Qualification: | Ph.D |
| Title: | QuARC – A Quality Assurance Range Calorimeter for Proton Therapy |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Copyright © The Author 2023. Original content in this thesis is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) Licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/). Any third-party copyright material present remains the property of its respective owner(s) and is licensed under its existing terms. Access may initially be restricted at the author’s request. |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Maths and Physical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Maths and Physical Sciences > Dept of Physics and Astronomy |
| URI: | https://discovery-pp.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10178868 |
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