High-speed proton therapy within a short breath-hold

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Maradia, Vivek, Yue, Nick, Molzahn, Adam, Wang, Jingqian, Pankuch, Mark, Charyyev, Serdar, Loo Jr, Billy W.
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Maradia, Vivek
Yue, Nick
Molzahn, Adam
Wang, Jingqian
Pankuch, Mark
Charyyev, Serdar
Loo Jr, Billy W.
author_facet Maradia, Vivek
Yue, Nick
Molzahn, Adam
Wang, Jingqian
Pankuch, Mark
Charyyev, Serdar
Loo Jr, Billy W.
contents Proton therapy provides superior dose conformity compared with photon radiotherapy, concentrating radiation within the tumor while sparing adjacent healthy tissue. This advantage has been most effectively realized for static tumors in anatomically stable regions, such as the head and neck. For thoracic and abdominal sites, however, physiological motion remains a critical challenge: because the proton dose distribution is highly sensitive to density variations, long delivery times relative to respiratory motion can compromise accuracy. Existing strategies to accelerate delivery often require substantial hardware modifications or are difficult to translate into routine practice. Here we report an optimization that enables high-speed proton delivery (5 to 10 sec per field) on a commercial synchrocyclotron platform without hardware changes. The method combines high-energy shoot-through beams with Bragg-peak delivery, an optimized nearest-neighbor scanning sequence, and a two-pulse dose regulation scheme. Applied to eight lung cancer cases (target volumes 100 to 1000 cc), the approach achieved full field delivery in under 10 sec compatible with a short breath hold while preserving conformity, dose accuracy, and sparing of organs at risk. This framework provides a practical route to motion robust proton therapy, improving precision, efficiency and patient tolerance. More broadly, it opens a pathway toward widespread clinical adoption of high-speed proton delivery for moving tumors.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2510_06766
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle High-speed proton therapy within a short breath-hold
Maradia, Vivek
Yue, Nick
Molzahn, Adam
Wang, Jingqian
Pankuch, Mark
Charyyev, Serdar
Loo Jr, Billy W.
Medical Physics
Proton therapy provides superior dose conformity compared with photon radiotherapy, concentrating radiation within the tumor while sparing adjacent healthy tissue. This advantage has been most effectively realized for static tumors in anatomically stable regions, such as the head and neck. For thoracic and abdominal sites, however, physiological motion remains a critical challenge: because the proton dose distribution is highly sensitive to density variations, long delivery times relative to respiratory motion can compromise accuracy. Existing strategies to accelerate delivery often require substantial hardware modifications or are difficult to translate into routine practice. Here we report an optimization that enables high-speed proton delivery (5 to 10 sec per field) on a commercial synchrocyclotron platform without hardware changes. The method combines high-energy shoot-through beams with Bragg-peak delivery, an optimized nearest-neighbor scanning sequence, and a two-pulse dose regulation scheme. Applied to eight lung cancer cases (target volumes 100 to 1000 cc), the approach achieved full field delivery in under 10 sec compatible with a short breath hold while preserving conformity, dose accuracy, and sparing of organs at risk. This framework provides a practical route to motion robust proton therapy, improving precision, efficiency and patient tolerance. More broadly, it opens a pathway toward widespread clinical adoption of high-speed proton delivery for moving tumors.
title High-speed proton therapy within a short breath-hold
topic Medical Physics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.06766