Embodiments of the present invention disclose methods and systems for producing an adaptive pencil beam having an adjustable lateral beam size and Bragg-peak width. According to one disclosed embodiment, an apparatus for producing an adaptive pencil beam is disclosed. The apparatus includes a set of momentum band expanders configured to widen a momentum spread of a pencil beam, where a momentum band expander is selected from the set of momentum band expanders to receive the pencil beam, and a slit at dispersive focus of two dipole magnets to adjust a width of a Bragg-peak of the pencil beam. According to another disclosed embodiment, a method for producing an adaptive pencil beam with an adjustable lateral beam is disclosed. The method includes selecting a scatter foil, or setting of a defocusing/focusing magnet, and adjusting a lateral size of the pencil beam.

A radiation therapy system includes an accelerator and beam transport system that generates a beam of particles. The accelerator and beam transport system guides the beam on a path and into a nozzle that can aim the beam toward an object. The nozzle includes a beam energy adjuster that can adjust the beam by, for example, placing different thicknesses of material in the path of the beam to affect the energies of the particles in the beam to deliver a dose to the object with a Spread Out Bragg Peak.

A heavy-particle treatment system exposes a patient's treatment volume, during the course of a single treatment session, to beams of heavy particles from a variety of different angles. The source of heavy particles may rotate about the patient to facilitate that variety of different angles. The foregoing can occur pursuant to a treatment plan that accounts for a penetration range as corresponds to the beams of heavy particles and for using at least one lateral beam controlling device to control at least one of the beams of heavy particles.

A spot scanning (SS) ion therapy system configured for dynamic trimming of an ion particle pencil beam to reduce the amount of the radiation dosage outside of a target boundary.

A gas scintillation detector is designed to provide in-beam absolute dose monitoring for ion beam radiotherapy treatments employing spot or raster beam scanning, especially with microsecond-scale beam pulses. Detection of prompt primary scintillation light emitted by gas molecules excited by beam passage provides electronic signals that can be processed to yield output data proportional to delivered dose up to high dose rates, and that appear quickly enough to provide feedback to influence real-time beam intensity adjustments for subsequent steps in the beam scan. When the scintillation light is collected in multiple photo-detectors, the invention is furthermore capable of measuring spot beam position with spatial resolutions of order one millimeter.

A treatment planning apparatus 501 or a clinical decision support apparatus 701 calculates a dose distribution, calculates the damage to a normal tissue for a plurality of number of times of radiation irradiation based on the calculated dose distribution, and displays at least one or more calculated damages to the normal tissues on display apparatuses 603 and 703 or outputs the same to an outside of the apparatuses 501 and 701. Accordingly, since effects can be calculated for a plurality of number of times of irradiation, the optimum number of time of irradiation can be presented, and an operator and a doctor can be presented with a suitable decision material of a radiation irradiation planning.

In particle beam irradiation equipment, a control unit causes a storage unit to store, as position information of reference positions, position information of electromagnets that is acquired at the time of their first alignment, by cameras, and then acquires displacement amounts, based on the position information of the reference positions stored in the storage unit and from position information of the electromagnets acquired at the time of their realignment, by the cameras.

The present disclosure is directed to systems and methods for real-time control of a charged particle pencil beam system during therapeutic treatment of a patient. In an aspect, the present disclosure is directed to measuring an actual shape, an actual intensity distribution, and an actual location at isocenter of the charged particle pencil beam. The actual data is compared to model treatment data in real time to determine if a statistically significant variance occurs in which case the charged particle pencil beam can be stopped mid-treatment for correction and/or analysis.

Embodiments disclose an energy degrader for attenuating the energy of a charged particle beam, comprising a first energy attenuation member presenting a beam entry face having the shape of a part of a first helical surface, a second energy attenuation member presenting a beam exit face having the shape of a part of a second helical surface, the beam exit face being positioned downstream of said beam entry face with respect to the beam direction, and a drive assembly for rotating the first and/or the second energy attenuation members about respectively a first and/or a second rotation axis while crossed by the particle beam. The first and second helical surfaces are continuous surfaces and have the same handedness, to enable a more compact degrader with a smaller moment of inertia.

A charged particle beam irradiation apparatus according to an embodiment includes: a first scanning electromagnet device configured to deflect a charged particle beam to a second direction that is substantially perpendicular to a first direction along which the charged particle beam enters, the first scanning electromagnet device having an aperture on an outlet side larger than that on an inlet side; and a second scanning electromagnet device configured to deflect the charged particle beam to a third direction that is substantially perpendicular to the first direction and the second direction, the second scanning electromagnet device having an aperture on an outlet side larger than that on an inlet side, the first scanning electromagnet device and the second scanning electromagnet device being disposed to be parallel with the first direction.