According to World Health Organization (WHO) cancer is a leading cause of death worldwide, accounting for nearly 10 million deaths in 2020, or nearly one in six deaths. Each year, an estimated half a million children and adolescents develop cancer. A correct cancer diagnosis is essential for appropriate and effective treatment. Often treatment includes radiotherapy, especially when other...
During the positron emission tomography (PET) scan, decaying radionuclide emits a positron, which annihilates with an electron from the surrounding tissue. In this process, two photons are emitted back-to-back, with 511 keV energies, and are subsequently detected by the scanner detectors. These two photons also have orthogonal polarizations, a fundamental property that has not yet been...
High-frequency (HF) front-end electronics are an attractive solution for exploiting fast light production mechanisms in crystals and achieving excellent performance in TOF-PET applications. They have demonstrated improved time resolution by allowing the lowering of the leading-edge detection threshold. This enables the use of the fastest photons produced in the crystals, such as Cherenkov...
Proton therapy is a cancer treatment employed for deep solid tumors or those near organs at risk, that exploits the advantages of the protons’ depth-dose profile. The efficacy of this therapy is currently hindered by significant uncertainties surrounding the Relative Biological Effectiveness (RBE) of proton beams. An important contribution to these uncertainties is related to the production of...
An innovative beam monitor for particle therapy applications was developed to count single protons and carbon ions in clinical beams and was integrated with a Time-to-Digital Converter to measure particles’ crossing time.
The detector exploits thin silicon sensors, which show sensitivity to single particles and fast charge collection times allowing to reach large counting rates. A 60 µm...
