Date of Award

8-1-2012

Document Type

Campus Access Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department

Physics, Applied

First Advisor

Stephen Arnason

Second Advisor

Bala Sundaram

Third Advisor

Joao Seco

Abstract

Proton and carbon therapy are expanding in popularity as a clinical modality of external beam radiotherapy due to their finite range in tissue. However, patient setup, tumor tracking, and range uncertainties all continue to cause problems in delivering treatment. The development of proton/carbon radiography offers the potential to rectify all three of these problems. Imaging the patient immediately before (or even during) treatment would aid in patient setup and tumor tracking. Radiographs can also provide range information, which would reduce range uncertainties. Finally, both proton and carbon beams deliver a smaller absorbed dose to patients than their photon counterparts, when used to produce images.

The aim of this study was to investigate the spatial resolution of both proton (230 MeV and 330 MeV) and carbon (400MeV/nucleon) radiography via monte carlo simulations. This was done for both cases by characterizing their modulation transfers functions (MTFs) and taking the 10% points. Our results indicate that both types of radiography yield sub-millimeter resolution and that carbon yields the better spatial resolution.

Comments

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