Detector design for range monitoring in hadron therapy by means of image reconstruction

Hadron therapy offers some advantages over conventional therapy. However, small errors in particle range may significantly increase dose delivered to healthy tissue or produce incomplete coverage of the target volume. Consequently, developing a method to verify the delivered dose and the Bragg peak location during treatment is crucial. Recent investigations have shown that the prompt gamma photons produced during the patient irradiation with hadron beams are in good correlation with the dose delivered to the patient and therefore, they can be used for in-beam range monitoring. Slit collimated gamma camera has been proposed as a system for prompt gamma imaging. Image reconstruction can potentially improve the accuracy of that system. The purpose of this work is to study and implement a reconstruction process for in-beam range monitoring using slit-collimated gamma camera. Obtained results will guide the design of the slit-collimated camera. The results indicate that the range monitoring is possible with slit camera using ML-EM reconstruction. The average deviation obtained using reconstructed profiles is 2.06 mm.