Particle therapy systems and methods for treating patients are provided. In one implementation, a particle therapy system may include an interaction chamber for containing a target and an electromagnetic radiation source configured to generate a pulsed electromagnetic radiation beam of at least about 100 terawatts and at a repetition rate of at least about 20 Hz. The particle therapy system may further include optics configured to direct the pulsed electromagnetic radiation beam along a path towards a target in the interaction chamber. The particle therapy system may further include an actuator configured to cause relative movement between the target and the electromagnetic radiation beam at a speed associated with the repetition rate of the electromagnetic radiation source, to thereby vary a location of interaction of the pulsed electromagnetic radiation beam on a surface of the target and thereby cause a resultant emission from the target of at least about 3×10.sup.6 charged particles per pulse.

The invention provides a charged particle irradiation apparatus including: a collimator apparatus provided in an irradiation nozzle that emits a charged particle beam to an irradiation target; and a collimator control unit that controls the collimator apparatus. The collimator apparatus includes a collimator mechanism having one or more arm-shape collimators extending from a base part and a drive mechanism that moves the collimator mechanism on a plane perpendicular to a traveling direction of a charged particle beam. The arm-shape collimator includes one or more movable leaves that rotate independently of each other on the perpendicular plane. By moving the collimator mechanism and/or rotating the movable leaves so that the arm-shape collimators are arranged along a shape of an edge of an irradiation target on the perpendicular plane, the collimator control unit causes the arm-shape collimators to block a charged particle beam that would otherwise irradiate outside of the edge of the irradiation target.

A radiotherapy treatment planning method for achieving a FLASH radiotherapy treatment plan involves optimizing the plan using an optimization problem that has been designed to maximize the part of the irradiation that will be delivered under FLASH conditions, in particular to an organ at risk, to minimize the damage to the organ at risk.

A method of optimizing a radiotherapy treatment plan for delivering charged particles to a patient by pencil beam scanning, involves optimizing the treatment plan using an optimization problem that is designed to allow spots to differ in at least one of shape and orientation, and optionally also in size. This enables the optimization spots so as to cover the target in the best possible way and with a sharp penumbra along the outer edges of the target. The invention also relates to a computer program product and a computer system for use in such planning and a treatment delivery system for delivering such a plan.

A treatment planning system that generates treatment planning for irradiating a target with a particle beam, includes an arithmetic processing device that sets at least two or more irradiation patterns for one treatment planning, calculates a plurality of predicted dose distributions for each irradiation pattern based on a target dose set for each region for at least one region including a region of the target, and calculates an index for evaluating validity of the irradiation pattern based on the plurality of predicted dose distributions.

A phantom, calibration system and calibration method are described. The phantom having a phantom body and an X-ray luminescent material, wherein at least a portion of the X-ray luminescent material is on a surface of the phantom.

An example computer-implemented method for tuning a beam spot in a radiation therapy system based on radiation field measurements has been disclosed. The example method includes configuring an electron beam to generate a first beam spot on an electron-beam target of the radiation therapy system, determining a value for one or more radiation field quality metrics for a first radiation beam that originates from the first beam spot, and based on the value, determining whether the first radiation beam is outside a specified quality range.

A particle beam adjustment device includes: a position monitor that detects a positional deviation of a particle beam transported from a beam transport section; an interlock device to interrupt irradiation of the particle beam when a positional deviation of the particle beam is detected by the position monitor; a pair of screen monitors that measure position and angle of an axis of the particle beam; a correction electromagnet that controls the axis of the particle beam by adjusting a magnetic field on a basis of a signal indicating the particle beam position and angle measured by the screen monitors; and a beam scanning electromagnet that irradiates an irradiation target with the particle beam. One of the screen monitors is installed outside a treatment room, and the other screen monitor and the position monitor are installed inside the treatment room.

For planning radiation treatment using spot scanning, also known as pencil beam scanning, the size and/or shape of the treatment target is considered when determining the placement and density of spots in the treatment target. For example, when generating a radiation treatment plan, the size and/or shape of the treatment target can be considered when determining the placement and density of spots in the treatment target. During treatment planning, the treatment target can be separated into regions corresponding to different target volumes in the treatment target, and the placement and density of spots (the amount of spacing between spots) in each region can be determined independently for each region according to the size and/or shape of the region.

A scanning candidate route extracting unit which extracts plural candidates of scanning routes in which each of the scanning routes connects all spot positions in one layer is provided, in an evaluation function using necessary scanning time Tk and weight coefficient wk for a kth partial route among partial routes which are routes between the spot positions which are adjacent on one of the plural candidates of scanning routes, and number n of spot in the layer, wk with respect to a partial route which passes through affected tissue is set to be 1, wk with respect to a partial route which passes through normal tissue is set to be bigger than 1, and wk with respect to a partial route which passes through an important internal organ is set to be bigger than wk with respect to a partial route which passes through normal tissue.