Clinical and Research Activities at the CATANA Facility of INFN-LNS: From the Conventional Hadrontherapy to the Laser-Driven Approach

Abstract

The CATANA proton therapy center was the first Italian clinical facility making use of energetic (62 MeV) proton beams for the radioactive treatment of solid tumors. Since the date of the first patient treatment in 2002, 294 patients have been successful treated whose majority was affected by choroidal and iris melanomas. In this paper, we report on the current clinical and physical status of the CATANA facility describing the last dosimetric studies and reporting on the last patient follow-up results. The last part of the paper is dedicated to the description of the INFN-LNS ongoing activities on the realization of a beamline for the transport of laser-accelerated ion beams for future applications. The ELIMED (ELI-Beamlines MEDical and multidisciplinary applications) project is introduced and the main scientific aspects will be described.

Report on G4‐Med, a Geant4 benchmarking system for medical physics applications developed by the Geant4 Medical Simulation Benchmarking Group

“…The experimental setup (transport beamline elements, detectors, irradiation device, etc.) used for cells irradiation has been modelled in detail using the Hadrontherapy advanced example (Cirrone et al 2017 [125]) Figure 21 shows the SF curves as derived from the experimental measurements and the Geant4 simulation.…”

Radiobiological quantities in proton-therapy: Estimation and validation using Geant4-based Monte Carlo simulations

“…The clinical proton beam calibration was performed before each irradiation; the variation of beam calibration between the experimental runs resulted to be within 3%. Details on the irradiation beam lines, dosimetric procedures and related uncertainties for irradiation conditions can be found elsewhere [22].…”

“…Two different approaches were developed to estimate the RBE: a computational method, which couples Geant4 with the LEM model (version III) [17], and a parametrized approach of the LQM, inspired by the McNamara work [21] and implemented for proton beam irradiations. Both approaches were applied to reproduce survival curves measured in three experiments conducted at the CATANA (Centro di Adroterapia ed Applicazioni Nucleari Avanzate) protontherapy facility of INFN-LNS (Catania, I) [22].…”

Biomedical Research Programs at Present and Future High-Energy Particle Accelerators

“…The National Institute for Nuclear Physics (INFN) in Italy has several accelerator facilities with biomedical applications, including Laboratori Nazionali del Sud (LNS) in Catania [68], the first center in Italy to treat patients with proton therapy for eye tumors, and the Trento Institute for Fundamental Physics and Applications (TIFPA), where an experimental vault [69] with two beamlines delivering protons with energies up to 230 MeV is available in the local proton therapy center, where two other rooms are equipped with isocentric gantries for treating patients.…”

“…RILAB will be dedicated to research in the field of radioisotopes (cross-section measurements, highpower target tests, etc. ), whereas RIFAC will be devoted to the production of novel radioisotopes ( 64 Cu, 67 Cu, 82 Sr, 68 Ge, etc.). In June 2018, the INFN board of directors has approved the contracts for the supply of beam and the lease of laboratory space to BEST Theratronics for the commercial production of radioisotopes, initially using the ISOL2 cave.…”