A scanning dynamic collimator for spot-scanning proton minibeam production

Marios Sotiropoulos (1) , Yolanda Prezado (1)

1 Signalisation, radiobiologie et cancer

Abstract In proton minibeam radiation therapy, proton minibeams are typically produced by modulating a uniform field using a multislit collimator. Multislit collimators produce minibeams of fixed length and width, and a new collimator has to be manufactured each time a new minibeam array is required, limiting its flexibility. In this work, we propose a scanning dynamic collimator for the generation of proton minibeams arrays. The new collimator system proposed is able to produce any minibeam required on an on-line basis by modulating the pencil beam spots of modern proton therapy machines, rather than a uniform field. The new collimator is evaluated through Monte Carlo simulations and the produced proton minibeams are compared with that of a multislit collimator. Furthermore, a proof of concept experiment is conducted to demonstrate the feasibility of producing a minibeam array by repositioning (i.e. scanning) a collimator. It is concluded that besides the technical challenges, the new collimator design is producing equivalent minibeam arrays to the multislit collimator, whilst is flexible to produce any minibeam array desired.

Domaines: Physique [physics]

Marios Sotiropoulos, Yolanda Prezado. A scanning dynamic collimator for spot-scanning proton minibeam production. Scientific Reports, 2021, 11 (1), ⟨10.1038/s41598-021-97941-w⟩. ⟨hal-03366627⟩