Mini-SOBPs Based Combinatorial Irradiation Method in Heavy Ion Radiotherapy

In layer-stacking conformal heavy-ion therapy based on passive beam delivery system,it is necessary to minimize the layer numbers and reduce irradiation time for layer-stacking conformal heavy-ion therapy.Gaussian shaped mini spread-out Bragg peaks (mini-SOBP) were generated by mini ridge filters (mini-RF) for monoenergetic heavy ion beams.It is effective to minimize the layer number by using mini-SOBPs with the bigger full width at the half maximum (FWHM),but in this way the distal dose fall-off distance of a spread-out Bragg peak (SOBP) will be enlarged,increasing the radiation damage to normal tissue or organ at risk behind the target volume.This issue could be solved by using mini-SOBPs based combinatorial irradiation method.In this study,Gaussian shaped mini-SOBPs with two different FWHMs were generated by two different mini-RFs for monoenergetic heavy ion beams.Based on radiobiological model calculations and dose optimizations,the mini-SOBPs based combinatorial irradiation method was confirmed to reduce the distal dose fall-off distances of SOBPs while minimizing the layer numbers for layer-stacking conformal heavy-ion therapy.