Cone-beam spectral ct: enabling in-situ adaptation in proton therapy

 

Principal Investigator: dr. ir. Dennis Schaart (TU Delft)

PhD student: David Leibold (TU Delft)

Funding: HollandPTC-Varian 2018

Description

The main objective is to initiate a research program targeted at the development, implementation, and clinical validation of cone-beam spectral CT (CBSCT) as an ideal image guidance modality for image-guided online-adaptive proton therapy.

Specific aims are:

  • To identify the main factors affecting soft tissue contrast and accuracy of stopping power ratios (SPR) determination in CBSCT, to quantify their influence, and to determine the fundamental performance limits.
  • To develop a flexible image reconstruction platform capable of reconstructing images with optimum soft-tissue contrast and quantitative accuracy from (preprocessed) spectrally-resolved CBCT data.
  • To optimize and demonstrate the soft tissue contrast and SPR accuracy offered by CBSCT in phantom experiments, in comparison with conventional CBCT.