Zohrab Amirkhanyan (Germany)
DESY, Zeuthen site PITZAuthor Of 1 Presentation
NEW R&D PLATFORM WITH UNIQUE CAPABILITIES FOR ELECTRON FLASH AND VHEE RADIATION THERAPY AND RADIATION BIOLOGY UNDER PREPARATION AT PITZ
Abstract
Background and Aims
At the Photo Injector Test facility at DESY in Zeuthen (PITZ, near Berlin, Germany), the realization of an R&D platform for electron FLASH radiation therapy, VHEE radiation therapy and radiation biology is under preparation. The name of the new platform is HP²eFLASH-RT@PITZ, which stands for high power, high performance electron FLASH radiation therapy at PITZ.
Methods
The beam parameters that PITZ can provide are unique in the world: ps scale electron bunches with up to 5nC bunch charge at MHz repetition rate in bunch trains of up to 1 ms in length.
Results
The individual bunches can produce dose rates up to 1014 Gy/s and dose deposition up to 1000 Gy. Upon demand, each bunch of the bunch train can be guided to a different transverse location on the tumor, so that either a “painting” with micro beams, or a cumulative increase of absorbed dose using a wide beam distribution can be realized at the tumor. Full tumor treatment can hence be finished in a time interval of 1 ms, mitigating organ movement issues. Together with 20 years of operational experience at PITZ, and availability of detailed beam characterization and extremely flexible beam manipulation capabilities, this R&D platform will cover current parameter range of successfully demonstrated FLASH effects and extend the parameter range towards yet unexplored and unexploited short treatment times and high dose rates.
Conclusions
A summary of the plans for HP²eFLASH-RT@PITZ and the status of the preparations will be presented, with as goal to stimulate interest and broaden out our cooperation.