1. Very High Energy Electron for Radiotherapy Studies
Awad Almarhaby
Christmas Talk 2016.
Supervised by
Prof. Roger Jones
Sponsored by The Ministry of Health, Saudi.

2. Outline My Background PhD Project Overview
VHEE for Radiotherapy Application.
Scattered Gammas for Real-Time Verification
Future Plans

3. My Background
BSc in Medical Physics from Umm- Alqura University, Saudi, 2005.
Teaching Assistant at Medical Collage KAU, Jeddah, Saudi 2006.
Medical Physicist at Radiotherapy Department-Oncology Center, Jeddah, Saudi ( ).
QA for linacs (photon and electron).
Dosimetry using TPS (Xio and Eclips).
Radiation Protection (RSO) for Brachytherapy and NM radioactive sources.

4. 4- Neutrons react with boron 5- Cancer cells are destroyed
My Background
MSc in Radiation and Environmental Protection.
The University of Surrey, UK (2013).
MSc dissertation title “Boron Neutron Capture Therapy for Cancer Treatment”.
2- Thermal neutron irradiation (energy about eV)
1- Administration of boron-containing drug
3- Neutron capture
4- Neutrons react with boron
5- Cancer cells are destroyed
Pictures from OIST
4/10

5. CT image quality phantom
My Background
Medical Physicist at Radiology Department-KFGH, Jeddah, Saudi (2014).
QA for medical imaging devices
Occupational exposure monitoring
Radiation protection program (RSO)
Fluoroscopy CT
X-ray Machine
Mammography
CT image quality phantom
CT dosimetry phantom
Ionization
chamber
CT ionization chamber

6. PhD Project Overview
To investigate VHEE properties in comparison to current external radiotherapy methods.
Exploring the feasibility of using secondary radiation for dose verification during VHEE irradiation.

7. Conventional Accelerators Laser-Plasma Wakefield Accelerator
VHEE ( MeV) for Radiotherapy
Esophagus case dose distributions for 6MV photon VMAT and 120 MeV VHEE. Palma et. al 2016
Effective range exceed 40 cm
Very good dose conformation
Better dose sparing of OARs
Scattering in air and tissues is sufficiently constrained
Electromagnetic steering
Conventional Accelerators
Laser-Plasma Wakefield Accelerator

8. Real-Time Verification
Typical Radiotherapy Process
1- Imaging for anatomical
and functional information usually using CT.
3- Set-up on the Linac using kV or MV images
followed by dose delivery (4-6 weeks).
2- Acquired image is used for
treatment planning

9. Real-Time Verification
There are several sources of uncertainty that may affect dose delivery for example:
Dose at the calibrated point in water
Beam monitor stability
Patient data
Patient setup
Organ motions
Tissue swilling
Internal cavity fillings
Tumour shrinkage
EPID
MV or kV beam use bony structures for setup verification by producing 2D images before the treatment (extra dose).

10. Scintillator Detector
Secondary Radiation for Real-Time Verification
Is it possible to make an image from treatment beams to overcome exposing patients to extra doses?
User Level
Application Layer
Core Layer
Geant4
Beam Direction
10 6 particle
Geant4 Application for Emission Tomography (GATE)
Scintillator Detector
Water Phantom
150 MeV
Electron
15 cm
40 cm

11. Lead fluorescence peaks
Secondary Radiation for Real-Time Verification
2D Image
Lead fluorescence peaks
Annihilation peak
Backscatter peak ? ?

12. Future Work Further simulations using different geometries.
Different target materials will be added such as bone and cartilage.
Exploring other scintillator detectors such as NaI(TI), LYSO and GSO crystals.
Adding more number of detectors around the phantom to produce 3D image.

13. Questions