Characterization of an In-Beam PET Prototype for Proton Therapy With Different Target Compositions

Abstract

<para xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> At the University of Pisa, the DoPET (Dosimetry with a Positron Emission Tomograph) project has focused on the development and characterization of an <emphasis emphasistype="italic">ad hoc</emphasis>, scalable, dual-head PET prototype for in-beam treatment planning verification of the proton therapy. In this paper we report the first results obtained with our current prototype, consisting of two opposing lutetium yttrium orthosilicate (LYSO) detectors, each one covering an area of 4.5<formula formulatype="inline"><tex Notation="TeX">$\times $</tex></formula>4.5 <formula formulatype="inline"><tex Notation="TeX">${\rm cm}^{2}$</tex></formula>. We measured the <formula formulatype="inline"><tex Notation="TeX">$\beta ^{+}$</tex></formula>-activation induced by 62 MeV proton beams at Catana facility (LNS, Catania, Italy) in several plastic phantoms. Experiments were performed to evaluate the possibility to extract accurate phantom geometrical information from the reconstructed PET images. </para>