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Welcome to the
Particles NewsLetter
INDEX:
| GENERAL
COMMENTS:UL>
|
PTCOG
NEWS / REPORTS:
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fee for PTCOG meetings would be used to help produce both
Particles and the abstracts of the PTCOG meetings. Only part
of the costs are covered in this way, so more financial help
is needed from the community. HCL is always happy to receive
financial gifts; all such gifts are deductible as charitable
contributions for federal income tax purposes. The appropriate
method is to send a check made out to the "Harvard Cyclotron
Laboratory".
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and Patient Statistics:
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collecting information about all operating and proposed facilities,
regarding patient statistics, machine scheduling, and treatment
characteristics. Please send me up-to-date information.
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on the Internet:
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| ARTICLES
FOR PARTICLES 20 |
The deadline
for news for Particles 20, the July 1997 issue, is May 31 1997.
I will send reminders by fax or e-mail.
Address all
correspondence for the newsletter
to:
Janet Sisterson Ph. D.
Harvard Cyclotron Laboratory
Cambridge, MA 02138
Telephone: (617) 495-2885
Fax: (617) 495-8054
44 Oxford Street
E-mail: sisterson@huhepl.harvard,edu
Articles for
the newsletter can be short but should NOT exceed two pages
in length. The best way to send an article is by computer.
If you FAX me an article, remember that I scan them into the
computer so I need a good clean copy of any figures.
| PTCOG
and FUTURE PTCOG MEETINGS |
Chair: Michael Goitein Secretary: Janet Sisterson
Department of Radiation Oncology Harvard Cyclotron Laboratory
Massachusetts General Hospital 44 Oxford Street
Boston MA 02114 Cambridge MA 02138
The times and locations of the next PTCOG meetings are as follows:-
PTCOG XXVI Boston, Massachusetts USA April 30 - May 2
PTCOG XXVII Chiba, Japan November 17 - 19 1997
PTCOG XXVIII Loma Linda, CA USA Spring 1998
PTCOG XXIX Lake Maggiore, Italy Fall 1998
|
PTCOG XXVI
meeting in Boston, Massachusetts, USA April 30 - May 2 1997
|
Details of
this meeting are in a SEPARATE package in this mailing. Here are
some facts:
- The registration
fee will be <$200; we have not set it yet.
- If you send
in the registration form by March 10 1997, we will reduce your
registration fee by $25. Please pay using cash, a check in dollars
on a US bank or travelers checks.
- Address all
questions to:
Mrs. Dawn Trenchard,
Dept. of Radiation Oncology,
Massachusetts General Hospital,
Boston, MA 02114.
fax; 617-724-9532;
e-mail; trenchard@hadron.mgh.harvard.edu.
- Deadline for
hotel registration: March 29 1997. Contact the following hotels
directly. The rooms are reserved as the PTCOG group.
Holiday Inn Select Royal Sonesta Hotel
5 Blossom St. 5 Cambndge Parkway
Boston, MA 02114 Cambndge, MA 02142
TEL: (617) 742-7630 TEL: (617) 491-3600
FAX: (617) 742-7804 FAX: (617) 661 -5956
Single and Double: $149.95 Single and Double: $149.00
Armed Services YMCA John Jeffries House
150 Second Ave 14 Embarkment Rd
Charlestown, MA 02129 Boston, MA 02114
TEL:(617) 241-8400 TEL: (617) 367-1866
FAX: (617) 241 -2856 FAX: (617) 742-0313
Double rooms only: $59.00 Singles and Doubles: $75.00-$135.00
Deadline for
requests to present a paper or poster: April 1 1997. Send requests
to Janet Sisterson;
E-MAIL is best.
Session headings:
Northeast Proton Therapy Center;
Measurement of 3D dose distributions;
Analysis of the technology and cost of delivering proton therapy
and the relationship of these to conventional photon therapy;
evening at HCL;
Clinical issues of dosimetry and radiobiology;
Clinical trials, data base design, and proffered papers -
clinical; Treatment planning intercomparisons -
nasopharynx and proffered papers;
PTCOG organizational meeting;
Conference dinner;
2 sessions of proffered papers, both clinical and physics.
| Abstracts
for PTCOG XXVI in Boston |
Authors are encouraged
to submit an abstract of their talk, which will be published with
the July 1997 issue of Particles. The ideal space allocated for
each abstract is ONE HALF page; PLEASE try and keep to this length.
DO NOT EXCEED one page. Please do not use a small typeface. Each
abstract must have a title and a list of authors with addresses;
graphs and line drawings are welcome.
6th Workshop
on Heavy Charged Particles in Biology and Medicine
Baveno, Lago Maggiore, Italy September 10 - 12 1997 |
The workshop
will be organized by ISE of Baveno, Lago Maggiore, on September
10 12 1997, the week before the International Conference on Medical
Physics in Nice, France.
It will be
dedicated to the presentation and discussion of the new results
of experiments and theory in particle radiation biology. The
main topic will be the application of charged-particle beams
like protons and heavy ions to tumor therapy. In addition, biological,
biochemical and physical problems related to radiobiology using
beams of heavy charged particles will be discussed.
For further
information, please contact:
Roberto Cirio Gerhard Kraft Enzo Sacco
INFN TO Biophysics GSI IEO sez. TERA MI
Via Giuira 1 Planck Str. 1 via Ripamonti 435
I - 10125 Torino D - 64291 Darmstadt 20141 Milano
Italy Germany Italy
fax; +39 11 6699579 fax: +49 6150 712106 fax: +39 2 57489208
WORLD
CONGRESS ON MEDICAL PHYSICS AND BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERING
Nice, France, September 14 - 19 1997 |
From 14 - 19
September 1997, the WORLD CONGRESS ON MEDICAL PHYSICS AND BIOMEDICAL
ENGINEERING will take place in Nice on the French Riveria. After
Kyoto (1991) and Rio (1994), it will provide an unique opportunity
for scientific exchanges and discussions on various topics of
interest for all those involved in “Particle therapy”.
Jean-Claude
ROSENWALD
Co-chair for the Scientific Committee
For Scientific contacts on “protons,
For information about the meeting: neutrons & heavy ions in radiotherapy”
NICE’ 97 - SEE Alejandro MAZAL
48, rue de la Procession Centre de Protontherapie d’Orsay, BP. 65
F75724 PARIS CEDEX 15, FRANCE 91402 ORSAY CEDEX, FRANCE
Phone: + 33 1 44 49 60 60 Phone: + 33 1 69 29 87 00
Fax: + 33 1 44 49 60 44 Fax: + 33 1 69 07 55 00
| PTCOG
Meeting Reports: PSI and CERN. September 1996 |
The Second International
Symposium on Hadrontherapy , was held in Switzerland partly at
PSI - Villigen (9-11 September) and partly at CERN - Geneva (11-13
September). The first part was the 1996 fall PTCOG meeting. The
Symposium was organized as a joint meeting of EHTG - European
Heavy Particle Therapy Group, PTCOG - Proton Therapy Co-operative
Group - and TERA - Foundation for Oncological Hadrontherapy -
under the sponsorship of CERN, ICRUM and PSI. The second part
of the Symposium, “Advances in Hadrontherapy and its Techniques”,
tackled recent developments - which are the background of technologies
used on particle accelerators - and more general aspects of oncology
and hadrontherapy along the lines of the First International Symposium
on Hadrontherapy, held in Como (Italy) in October 1993.
The use of
hadrons in medicine has come a long way and the presence at
CERN of Bob Wilson, Fermilab’s first director, who realised
the potential of protons to kill cancer tumours 50 years ago,
has given the opportunity to set an ideal bridge between past,
present and future of hadrontherapy (R. Wilson: “A Paper
of Fifty Years Ago: Radiological Use of Fast Protons” and,
among the others, S. Dische: “Status and Future Directions
of Tumour Therapy”; M. Goitein: “Technology of Hadrontherapy:
A Review of the Existing Technologies, their Pluses and Minuses”).
A global overview of the different working areas has been given
by world experts in the various fields: from status and future
directions of tumour therapy, with a review of past and existing
hadrontherapy protocols and a deep insight into boron neutron
capture therapy, (B. Larsson: “Boron Neutron Capture: A
Review of the Zürich Meeting”) to the role of radiobiology
in hadrontherapy centres, using bioinformatics, networking and
the recent developments in accelerators and detectors but giving
always the central role to the human being and to the related
ethical issues. (J. Bernier: “Clinical Trials and Ethical
issues in Cancer Research”).
Other talks
were given by J. Castro “ Clinical programmes: a review
of past and existing hadrontherapy protocols, their results
and future perspectives”; G. Kraft on “What radiobiology
should be done in a hadrontherapy centre ?”; P. Zanella
on “Advances in computing and trends in bioinformatics”;
D. Sendall on “The invention of WWW and future developments
in world-wide networks”; F. Sauli on the “Recent developments
in radiation detectors”; G. Bachy on the “Advances
in large and precise mechanical structures”; O. Ratib on
the “Medical applications of computers and networks”;
J. Yarnold on the “Impact of modern biology on clinical
radiotherapy”; and A. Wambersie summarized the meeting
in the “Concluding remarks”.
During the
Symposium, the presence at CERN of the travelling exhibition
Hadrons for Health - set up for the first time last year by
the TERA Foundation, Italy and CERN for the celebration of one
hundred years of radiation physics, and appointed to make the
tour of whole Europe - provided a successful and effective visual
frame to the whole scientific event.
The proceedings
are at present under preparation and will be published by Elsevier,
Amsterdam, as was done for the First International Symposium,
with contributions ranging from the biophysical and therapeutical
to computing, measurement and treatment planning issues by around
50 contributors from all over the world, with the title “Advances
in Hadrontherapy”. This will be the second of a set of
two volumes, the first of which entitled “Advances in Boron
Neutron Capture Therapy”, which contains the Proceedings
of the BNCT Meeting held in Zürich from September 4th to 7th,
1996. Ugo Amaldi, CERN, Geneva, CH-1211, Switzerland.
| PTCOG
News / Reports: The following reports were received by January
1997. |
Hot news
from IBA: the Northeast Proton Therapy Center equipment
The beam tests
on the NPTC cyclotron are progressing well at IBA factory in
Belgium. The maximum energy of 235 MeV was reached with the
internal beam in late November. The beam was extracted in December
and by early January 1997, a maximum current of 1200 nA had
been extracted. This is four times the design goal of a 300
nA extracted beam.
At the same
time, most of the beam transport magnets are completed at the
Sigmaphi factory in France, while the major parts of the gantry
are undergoing final machining. The first gantry assembly will
take place late February in the Cockerill Mechanic Industries
factory in Belgium. Yves Jongen, Ion Beam Applications, Chemin
du Cyclotron 2, Louvain-la-Neuve, B-1348, Belgium.
News from
the PSI Proton Therapy Program:
Looking back
on 1996, one is tempted to start at the end, as we treated the
first human patient on the PSI proton gantry in November 1996.
This was the event we had been working for since some years,
and we succeeded in a satisfying performance of the therapy.
But to be reasonable, we should reveal the events of 1996 in
the right order, which points out how our project developed
in it’s final phase before going into operation.
On January
30, 1996, PSI celebrated the official inauguration of the gantry
with a lot of public relation, press, TV, guests and contributions
from different speakers. Prof. Herman Suit and Prof. Michael
Goitein gave presentations to the Proton Users Group at PSI
during their assembly in the morning of that day as well as
to the general audience during the official ceremony in the
afternoon. This event had to take place early in 1996 for logistic
reasons, though the facility was not yet ready for patient treatments.
The next important date for the proton project was April, when
the whole Life Science Department was audited. Amongst the different
projects, proton therapy was judged to be of first priority
for PSI’s future activities. In June, experts from Berkeley,
Boston and Darmstadt came for a safety review. It was the first
safety review for the gantry project, and the outcome was not
only an excellent and very detailed report with recommendations,
but also an additional challenge for our group to improve the
project as far as possible. Beside this we had also our own
plans for technical developments which we wanted to complete
before treating human patients. During summer and fall we worked
on the recommended changes and refinements of hard- and software,
in parallel we irradiated three animal patients (dogs with spontaneous
nasal and brain tumors). In September we had the pleasure to
host PTCOG XXV and to show the new facility to our interested
guests.
The first
human patient was referred in November by the University Clinic
of Zurich for a boost treatment of a brain metastases from a
malignant melanoma. A safe performance of the treatment, which
had to be finished before the onset of the shutdown in December,
was the main goal. The patient had had 46 Gy whole brain irradiation
before, we boosted the visible lesion in the thalamus area with
4 x 2.5 CGE. The patient had a whole body mold and head fixation
with a mask. Before each treatment we did a position check with
orthogonal CT scout views and additional x-rays on the gantry.
The clinical status of the patient improved during the treatment.
He was dismissed from the nearby hospital in Brugg to his family,
who takes very good care of him. A follow up CT of the brain
is planned at the end of January.
The medical
activities on the gantry will restart in April 1997 after the
shutdown of the main PSI accelerator. Gudrun Munkel, Division
of Radiation Medicine, Paul Scherrer Institute, Villigen, CH-5232,
Switzerland.
News from the National Accelerator Centre, Faure, South
Africa:
Up to 30 November
1996 a total of 880 patients had been treated in the neutron
therapy programme (since September 1988), while 175 patients
had been treated on the proton therapy facility (since September
1993), mainly for intracranial lesions.
The design
of a multiblade post-collimator trimmer for neutron therapy
is well advanced. This device should be installed early next
year and will provide more flexible and convenient beam shaping.
A new protocol for the treatment of advanced breast cancer with
neutrons has recently been implemented while treatment in a
new prostate protocol will begin next year.
A preliminary
design study for fixed near-vertical (15 degree) and horizontal
beam lines in an empty vault is in progress. Magnets and power
supplies from a physics experiment which may be dismantled could
be used, resulting in a significant cost saving.
The tenure
of Prof Gerd Schmitt (University of Dusseldorf) as Consultant
Radiation Oncologist has just ended. We are most grateful to
him for the valuable contribution he has made to our clinical
programme during the last 3 years.
NAC PROTON THERAPY PATIENTS
(all treatments fractionated)
DIAGNOSIS Up to Since Total
31 Dec 1995 1 Jan 1996
AVM 28 12 40
Acoustic neuroma 14 10 24
Meningioma 15 6 21
Brain metastasis 14 1 15
Pituitary adenoma 13 6 19
Glioma (low grade) 5 5
Craniopharyngioma 4 1 5
Oropharyngeal ca. 2 2
Carcinoma of the orbit 1 5 6
Prostate ca. (boost) 2 2
Glioma (high grade) 2 3 5
Skull base ca. 3 5 8
Skull base sarcoma 1 2 3
Paranasal sinus ca. 2 3 5
Choroidal melanoma 1 1
Haemangiopericytoma 1 1 2
Paraspinal metastasis 2 1 3
Lachrymal sac carcinoma 1 1
Tongue -base carcinoma 1 1
Adenocarcinoma of nose 1 1
Adenocystic ca. of
hard palate 1 1
Osteosarcoma 1 1
Rectal ca. 1 1
Haemangioblastoma 1 2 3
TOTALS 115 60 175
Dan Jones,
National Accelerator Centre, P. O. Box 72, Faure 7131, South
Africa.
FLUKA and
GEANT: Real and Simulated Data Comparative Studies for Proton
Energy Loss:
Various problems
need to be solved using simulation codes in hadrontherapy; among
these we direct our attention to dE/dx for low energy ( lower
than 1 MeV) and to detector dimensions. The simulation codes
used were originally designed for high energy physics experiments
and it thus necessary to verify their behaviour at the energies
of interest. Of these we consider GEANT and FLUKA. GEANT is
a code developed at CERN in which one of the packages for describing
hadronic showers is FLUKA. FLUKA is a stand alone code and only
the parts dealing with hadronic interaction have been included
in GEANT.; they do not usually represent the latest FLUKA developments.
We also use the FLUKA standalone, in which the field of application
has been extended for its use in hadrontherapy and it is still
in development.
To obtain
protons dE/dx we consider a pencil beam which interacts with
a thin volume. The detector sections is (1 x 1) cm2 and the
thickness selected is 1/100th of the range for precise energy
deposition. When this is not possible the lowest thickness selected
is 1 x 10-3 cm which is the limit of GEANT stepping. For FLUKA
there is no limitation for step choice. The materials with which
the beam interacts are hydrogen, oxygen and lead as elements
and air, water and equivalent tissue (A150) as compounds. The
energy range goes from 10 keV to 1 MeV with small energy steps
and from 1 MeV to 200 MeV with larger steps.
Figure 1. Figure 2.
Figure 1 shows
the hydrogen percentage difference between the dE/dx values simulated
with GEANT and FLUKA and the ones tabulated in ICRU. As can be
seen, there is little difference between the results obtained
with the two codes although the smaller difference with respect
to the ICRU data is obtained using FLUKA. In Figure 2., where
we show the results for equivalent tissue, an evident difference
can be seen; until 800 keV only the FLUKA simulation is possible
because the thickness selected is lower than the thickness limit
accepted by GEANT. When GEANT is usable, FLUKA gives the better
results.
The first
approach to the use of simulation codes originally written for
high energy physics leads us to the following results: the minimum
detector width for FLUKA is 1 nm and 1 x 10-3 cm for GEANT.
When the proton energy is below one MeV, however, the use of
FLUKA is still very approximate and the conclusions we can reach
must be considered with particular care. Even though our simulation
framework is very simple, we know that simulating complex geometry
is easier using GEANT. Using FLUKA, however, it is possible
to score energy in a binning structure which is independent
of the geometry simulated.
S. Garelli,
S. Giordano and S. Squarcia, Dipartimento di Fisica e Sezione
INFN di Genova, Italy.
| Proposed
NEW FACILITIES for PROTON & ION BEAM THERAPY |
List dated
January 1997
INSTITUTION PLACE TYPE 1ST COMMENTS
RX?
Berlin Germany p 1997 72 MeV cyclotron; eye treatment beam line.
G.S.I Darmstadt Germany ion 1997 First Carbon beam in the medical cave 7/6/95
KVI Groningen Netherlands p 1998 plan:- 200 MeV accel.; 2 rms; 1 gantry; 1 fix.
NPTC (Harvard) MA U.S.A. p 1998 at MGH; 235 MeV cyclotron; 2 gantries + 3 horiz.
Kashiwa Japan p 1998 235MeV cyclotron;2gantries;1horiz; under construction
NC Star NC U.S.A. p 1999? synchrotron; 70-300 MeV; 2 horiz; 1 gantry
Hyogo Japan ion 2000 protons & ion; 2 gantries; 1 horiz; 1 vert; 1 45 deg.
TERA Italy p, ion 2002? H- accel; 60-250 MeV p; +BNCT; isotope prod.
AUSTRON Austria ion ? protons and light ions.
Beijing China p ? 250 MeV synchrotron.
Central Italy Italy p ? cyclotron; 1 gantry; 1 fixed
Clatterbridge England p ? upgrade using booster linear accelerator.
ISS (Italian “NIH”) Italy p ? 200 MeV linac;1eye room; gantry?;under construction
ITEP Moscow Russia p ? 3 horiz.-1 fix beam, 2 gantry, 1 exp., H- accel.
Jülich (KFA) Germany p ? exp. beam line; plans for therapy.
Krakow Poland p ? 60 MeV proton beam.
Kyoto Japan p ? 250 MeV synchrotron; gantry; 1 fixed horiz beam.
Proton Development N.A. IL USA p ? 300 MeV protons; therapy & lithography
PROTOX England p 2001? existing RAL synchrotron; 250 MeV; 3 treat. gantry
Regensburg Germany p ? gantry;1 fixed beam; 1 eye beam.
| WORLD
WIDE CHARGED PARTICLE PATIENT TOTALS |
List
dated January 1997
WHO WHERE WHAT DATE DATE RECENT DATE
FIRST LAST PATIENT OF
RX RX TOTAL TOTAL
Berkeley 184 CA. U.S.A. p 1954 — 1957 30
Berkeley CA. U.S.A. He 1957 — 1992 2054 June-91
Uppsala Sweden p 1957 — 1976 73
Harvard MA. U.S.A. p 1961 6972 Dec-96
Dubna Russia p 1967 — 1974 84
Moscow Russia p 1969 2838 May-96
Los Alamos NM. U.S.A. ¹- 1974 — 1982 230
St. Petersburg Russia p 1975 969 Dec-95
Berkeley CA. U.S.A. heavy ion 1975 — 1992 433 June-91
Chiba Japan p 1979 96 Oct-96
TRIUMF Canada ¹- 1979 — 1994 367 Dec-93
PSI (SIN) Switzerland ¹- 1980 — 1993 503
PMRC, Tsukuba Japan p 1983 462 July-95
PSI (72 MeV) Switzerland p 1984 2261 Dec-96
Dubna Russia p 1987 40 Nov-96
Uppsala Sweden p 1989 81 Mar-96
Clatterbridge England p 1989 698 June-96
Loma Linda CA. U.S.A p 1990 2000 July-96
Louvain-la-Neuve Belgium p 1991 21 Nov-93
Nice France p 1991 636 Nov-95
Orsay France p 1991 673 Nov-95
N.A.C. South Africa p 1993 175 Nov-96
IUCF IN USA p 1993 1 Dec-94
UCSF - CNL CA U.S.A p 1994 92 Nov-96
HIMAC, Chiba Japan heavy ion 1994 150 Aug-96
TRIUMF Canada p 1995 23 Dec-96
PSI (200 MeV) Switzerland p 1996 1 Dec-96
1100 pions
2637 ions
18226 protons
TOTAL 21963 all particles
Disclaimer:
The information and reference materials contained herein is intended
solely for the information of the reader. It should not be used
for treatment purposes, but rather for discussion with the patient's
own physician.© Copyright
© All Rights
Reserved MGH Neurosurgical Service 1999
990205 For Program Information contact: Dr
Janet Sisterson, PageServant
CJO |
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