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Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowship
Goal: Development of combined proton CT and X-ray cone beam CT image reconstruction techniques to improve treatment accuracy in ion beam therapy.
We will soon begin posting here how the project advances, so stay tuned.
About the researcher
Dr. Nils Krah studied physics at the University of Heidelberg, Germany, where he received his PhD degree in 2014. At this time, he moved into the field of medical imaging and began working on imaging applications in the context of ion beam therapy. After a year at the Institut de Physique Nucléaire de Lyon, France, he is now a Marie-Curie fellow at the CREATIS lab in Lyon, France.
Contact: nils.krah [AT] creatis.insa-lyon.fr
Objective of the project
Developing novel methods to produce volumetric images of a patient undergoing ion beam therapy lies at the heart of this project. More specifically, we are exploring strategies to merge proton computed tomography (pCT) and cone beam CT (CBCT) acquired directly in the treatment room based on which accurate dose-of-the-day calculations can be performed. The idea arises from the complementary advantages of proton and X-ray imaging: The former potentially provides a highly accurate volumetric RSP map while the latter produces images of high spatial resolution.
Background
Ion beam therapy has become a superior alternative to conventional radiotherapy for certain clinical indications. It potentially allows to deliver high dose to the tumor while sparing healthy surrounding tissue. However, a reduction of treatment uncertainties is required to fully exploit this advantage and precise knowledge of the relative stopping power (RSP) of the patient tissues on the day of treatment is needed to correctly predict the proton range in the treatment planning system (TPS). Modern imaging technology plays a key role here.