Abstract:
Proton radiotherapy uses beams of high energy protons to treat cancer. It is specifically used for cancers in children and near delicate structures due to the ability of delivering a highly focused dose to the cancer volume. The PRaVDA consortium are building an imaging device to image the patients with protons and form a proton Computed Tomography (pCT) image which will reduce the uncertainties on the treatment and further enhance patient care. Here we present the results of a Monte Carlo simulation of a novel proton Computerized Tomography instrument. We will give a brief overview of our pCT system whilst primarily focusing on our Monte Carlo modelling efforts using Geant4 to develop a full scale detector model to replicate our final design, the PRaVDASuperSimulation (SuSi). We will outline the results from modelling the sensors’ response and present a reconstructed proton CT image. We will also stress the importance of having a cluster such as BlueBEAR to perform these studies by illustrating the real time benefits of running the simulation compared to a single core machine.
