Basics of ion beam therapy and applications
Abstract:
Ion-beam therapy represents the final step in a 100 year development of external radiotherapy towards higher conformation and greater effectiveness.
Beam of ions such as protons and Carbon ions have a finite range and deposit their maximum dose at the end of this range. Applying intensity modulated beam delivery techniques, deep seated tumors and other targets can be irradiated with a high dose while the surrounding normal tissue is spared to a maximum extend. In addition, for carbon ions the biological interaction changes in the high dose area at the end of the range allowing a more effective cell inactivation for the same dose as possible with other radiation qualities. Finally, using PET techniques these ion beams can be traced in vivo inside the patient s body by monitoring a small amount of positron emitters created in nuclear reactions with the target tissue.
The significant better tumor control of ion beam therapy triggered the construction of many proton therapies but also of the more expensive carbon therapy units like HIT, MIT, CNAO, MedAustron and 5 unit in Japan.
In addition other diseases where a high precision intervention is required like heart arrhythmia came in the focus of ion beam treatment. On the other side the application of smaller accelerators like the laser driven plasma acceleration did not reach the breakthrough for an significant cost reduction and a further boost in marketing .