Theoretical and Experimental Investigation of Spectral Cone-Beam CT as an Isocentric Imaging Modality for Proton Radiotherapy Planning

Abstract

Proton radiotherapy is a cancer therapy that uses ionising radiation in the form of protons, offering an alternative and complement to conventional radiotherapy with high energy X-rays. In comparison to X-rays, proton beams have a finite range in tissue and deposit dose more locally. As a consequence, proton radiotherapy has the potential to deliver a higher dose to the tumour while better sparing surrounding healthy tissue. However, the delivered dose distribution in the case of protons is much more sensitive to changes in patient anatomy compared to X-rays, which therefore requires an accurate knowledge of proton stopping power ratio (SPR) values of the tissues to be treated.....