Development of beam monitoring system for proton pencil beam scanning using fiber-optic radiation sensor

Abstract

We aimed to develop a beam monitoring system based on a fiber-optic radiation sensor (FORS), which can be used in real time in a beam control room, to monitor a beam in proton therapy, where patients are treated using a pencil beam scanning (PBS) mode, by measuring the beam spot width (BSW) and beam spot position (BSP) of the PBS. We developed two-dimensional detector arrays to monitor the PBS beam in the beam control room. We measured the BSW for five energies of the PBS beam and compared the measurements with those of Lynx and EBT3 film. In order to confirm the BSP, we compared the BSP values of the PBS calculated from radiation treatment planning (RTP), to five BSP values measured using FORS at 224.2 MeV. When comparing BSW values obtained using developed monitoring system to the measurements obtained using commercial EBT3 film, the average difference in BSW value of the PBS beam was 0.1 +/- 0.1 mm. In the comparison of BSW values with the measurements obtained using Lynx, the average difference was 0.2 +/- 0.1 mm. When comparing BSP measurements to the values calculated from RTP, the average difference was 0.4 +/- 0.2 mm. The study results confirmed that the developed FORS-based beam monitoring system can monitor a PBS beam in real time in a beam control room, where proton beam is controlled for the patient.