A system for the delivery of proton therapy by pencil beam scanning of a predeterminable volume within a patient

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This invention provides an advanced system and method for delivering proton therapy using a precise pencil beam scanning technique. It includes real-time detection and correction of beam positions to ensure highly accurate targeting of tumors, even in situations where fast energy changes or organ movements could cause errors. The system employs self-teaching correction logic that collects data during test runs or initial treatments to continuously refine its accuracy, enabling high-speed, reliable, and flexible treatments for both static and moving targets within patients.

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• Cancer treatment centers using proton therapy for solid tumors such as those in the lung, liver, or brain.
• Medical facilities treating tumors in organs that may move during breathing or other bodily functions.
• Hospitals implementing advanced, high-precision, and rapid radiation therapies to reduce treatment times and minimize exposure of healthy tissue.
• Quality assurance and commissioning of new proton therapy installations, enabling quicker and safer start-up phases.
• Upgrading conventional proton therapy systems for improved accuracy, especially in clinics adopting pencil beam scanning techniques.

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• Greatly improves precision of proton therapy, minimizing irradiation of surrounding healthy tissues.
• Enables treatment of tumors in moving organs by compensating for organ motion and dynamic beam errors.
• Reduces systematic errors from beam dynamics (e.g., eddy currents or magnetization effects), ensuring medically acceptable accuracy.
• Shortens overall treatment time through rapid scanning and automatic correction processes.
• Offers a self-teaching, flexible system adaptable to a wide variety of tumors, patient anatomies, and therapy plans.
• Facilitates more reliable and safer operation, reducing risk of delivery errors and treatment interruptions.
• Accelerates commissioning and routine quality assurance of new or upgraded therapy systems, aiding in faster patient access.

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Patent Abstract

It is an objective of the present invention to provide a system and a method for improving the quality of beam delivery in a system for proton therapy by pencil beam scanning of a predeterminable volume within a patient that minimizes the extent of possible beam position errors to an extent medically acceptable. This objective is achieved according to the present invention by a system and a method for the delivery of proton therapy by pencil beam scanning of a predetermined volume within a patient, comprising: a) a proton source in order to generate a proton beam being adjustable with respect to the beam intensity and/or beam energy, i.e. by means of a degrader; b) a number of proton beam bending and/or focusing units; c) a beam nozzle having an outlet for the proton beam to penetrate the predetermined volume of the patient; d) a beam bending magnet being disposed upstream of the nozzle; e) a couple of sweeper magnets in order to sweep the proton beam in both lateral directions; f) a position-sensitive detector being aligned with the nozzle in order to control the position of the proton beam; and g) a control logic for controlling the position and the energy of the proton beam comprising a beam steering data set; h) a correction logic aligned with the control logic for correcting beam position errors by comparing an expected beam position with the actual beam position detected in the position-sensitive detector and generating beam position correction data in dependency of the comparison results.