Ricerc@Sapienza

Tumour control is performed in particle therapy using particles and ions, whose high irradiation precision enhances the effectiveness of the treatment, while sparing the healthy tissue surrounding the target volume.
Dose range monitoring devices using photons and charged particles produced by the beam interacting with the patient’s body have already been proposed, but no attempt has been made yet to exploit the detection of the abundant neutron component.

During Particle Therapy treatments the patient irradiation produces, among different types of secondary radiation, an abundant flux of neutrons that can release a significant dose far away from the tumour region. A precise measurement of their flux, energy and angle distributions is eagerly needed in order to improve the Treatment Planning Systems software and to properly take into account the risk of late complications in the whole body.