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- K.E. Woods, S. Boucher, F.H. O'Shea
RadiaBeam, Santa Monica, USA
- B.M. Hegelich
The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas, USA
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While the superior therapeutic efficacy of hadron therapy has been clearly demonstrated, its availability to cancer patients is limited by the cost and size of current systems. RadiaBeam Technologies, in collaboration with the UCLA Department of Radiation Oncology and the University of Texas at Austin, is proposing the utilization of innovative laser-driven ion acceleration (LDIA) technology for the development of a compact, inexpensive proton therapy system that can ultimately be adapted for the acceleration of carbon ions. At less than a third the price of the average proton therapy unit, the realization of this system would make hadron therapy a much more realistic option for hospitals and clinics worldwide. However, LDIA produces a beam with large divergence, wide energy spread with multiple ion species, and a significant background of electrons and X-rays. Thus, a major challenge for clinical implementation of LDIA is the development of a post-target beam conditioning system for collimation, focusing, energy selection, background shielding, and scanning. This paper will discuss the progress of our design of such a system and plans for future testing.
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