Feasibility of the J-PET to monitor the range of therapeutic proton beams

The aim of this work is to investigate the feasibility of the Jagiellonian Positron Emission Tomography (J-PET) scanner for intra-treatment proton beam range monitoring. The Monte Carlo simulation studies with GATE and PET image reconstruction with CASToR were performed in order to compare six J-PET scanner geometries. We simulated proton irradiation of a PMMA phantom with a Single Pencil Beam (SPB) and Spread-Out Bragg Peak (SOBP) of various ranges. The sensitivity and precision of each scanner were calculated, and considering the setup’s cost-effectiveness, we indicated potentially optimal geometries for the J-PET scanner prototype dedicated to the proton beam range assessment. The investigations indicate that the double-layer cylindrical and triple-layer double-head configurations are the most promising for clinical application. We found that the scanner sensitivity is of the order of 10−5 coincidences per primary proton, while the precision of the range assessment for both SPB and SOBP irradiation plans was found below 1 mm. Among the scanners with the same number of detector modules, the best results are found for the triple-layer dual-head geometry. The results indicate that the double-layer cylindrical and triple-layer double-head configurations are the most promising for the clinical application, We performed simulation studies demonstrating that the feasibility of the J-PET detector for PET-based proton beam therapy range monitoring is possible with reasonable sensitivity and precision enabling its pre-clinical tests in the clinical proton therapy environment. Considering the sensitivity, precision and cost-effectiveness, the double-layer cylindrical and triple-layer dual-head J-PET geometry configurations seem promising for future clinical application. •Simulation studies of the plastic scintillator-based PET detector were performed.•The cylindrical and dual-head J-PET systems are feasible for proton range monitoring.•The J-PET sensitivity is of the order of 10−5 coincidences per primary proton.•The precision of range assessment for irradiation fields is below 1 mm.