Prog Med Phys.  2016 Mar;27(1):37-45. 10.14316/pmp.2016.27.1.37.

Development of Dual-mode Signal Processing Module for Multi-slit Prompt-gamma Camera

• Park JH
• Lee HR
• Kim SH
• Kim CH
• Shin DH
• Lee SB
• Jeong JH

• KMID: 2161937
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.14316/pmp.2016.27.1.37

Abstract

In proton therapy, in vivo proton beam range verification is very important to deliver conformal dose to the target volume and minimize unnecessary dose to normal tissue. For this purpose, a multi-slit prompt-gamma camera module made of 24 scintillation detectors and 24-channel signal processing system is under development. In the present study, we have developed and tested a dual-mode signal processing system, which can operate in the energy calibration mode and the fast data acquisition mode, to process the signals from the 24 scintillation detectors. As a result of performance test, using the energy calibration mode, we were able to perform energy calibration for the 24 scintillation detectors at the same time and determine the discrimination levels for the detector channels. Further, using the fast data acquisition mode, we were able to measure a prompt-gamma distribution induced by a 45 MeV proton beam. The measured prompt gamma distribution was found similar to the proton dose distribution at the distal fall-off region, and the estimated beam range was 17.13±0.76 mm, which is close to the proton beam range of 16.15 mm measured by an EBT film.

Keyword

Proton therapy; Multi-slit prompt-gamma camera; Multi-slit collimator; Scintillation detector array; Dual-mode signal processing module

MeSH Terms

Calibration
Discrimination (Psychology)
Proton Therapy
Protons
Protons