TY - JOUR AU - Torres-Espallardo, I. AU - Diblen, F. AU - Rohling, H. AU - Solevi, P. AU - Gillam, J. AU - Watts, D. AU - Espana, S. AU - Vandenberghe, S. AU - Fiedler, F. AU - Rafecas, M. PY - 2015 DA - 2015// TI - Evaluation of resistive-plate-chamber-based TOF-PET applied to in-beam particle therapy monitoring T2 - Phys. Med. Biol. JO - Physics in Medicine and Biology SP - N187-N208 VL - 60 IS - 9 PB - Iop Publishing Ltd KW - PET KW - in-beam KW - RPC KW - particle therapy KW - TOF KW - range deviation KW - partial-ring AB - Particle therapy is a highly conformal radiotherapy technique which reduces the dose deposited to the surrounding normal tissues. In order to fully exploit its advantages, treatment monitoring is necessary to minimize uncertainties related to the dose delivery. Up to now, the only clinically feasible technique for the monitoring of therapeutic irradiation with particle beams is Positron Emission Tomography (PET). In this work we have compared a Resistive Plate Chamber (RPC)-based PET scanner with a scintillation-crystal-based PET scanner for this application. In general, the main advantages of the RPC-PET system are its excellent timing resolution, low cost, and the possibility of building large area systems. We simulated a partial-ring scannerbeam monitoring, which has an intrinsically low positron yield compared to diagnostic PET. In addition, for in-beam PET there is a further data loss due to the partial ring configuration. In order to improve the performance of the RPC-based scanner, an improved version of the RPC detector (modifying the thickness of the gas and glass layers), providing a larger sensitivity, has been simulated and compared with an axially extended version of the crystal-based device. The improved version of the RPC shows better performance than the prototype, but the extended version of the crystal-based PET outperforms all other options. based on an RPC prototype under construction within the Fondazione per Adroterapia Oncologica (TERA). For comparison with the crystal-based PET scanner we have chosen the geometry of a commercially available PET scanner, the Philips Gemini TF. The coincidence time resolution used in the simulations takes into account the current achievable values as well as expected improvements of both technologies. Several scenarios (including patient data) have been simulated to evaluate the performance of different scanners. Initial results have shown that the low sensitivity of the RPC hampers its application to hadron SN - 0031-9155 UR - https://doi.org/10.1088/0031-9155/60/9/N187 DO - 10.1088/0031-9155/60/9/N187 LA - English N1 - WOS:000354104700003 ID - Torres-Espallardo_etal2015 ER -