Measurement of Radiation Hardness of PET components

摘要

IN-BEAM PET has given valuable feedback on treatment quality over the 11 years of operation time between 1997 and 2008 of the heavy ion treatment facility at the Gesellschaft fur Schwerionenforschung (GSI) Darmstadt [1]. Based on this technical expertise a next generation of in-beam PET scanners will be developed. An experiment addressing the question whether the detectors and electronic components used in state- of-the-art PET-systems are suitable regarding radiation hardness for configuring a future in-beam PET scanner was performed at the medical beam line of GSI. A ~(12)C beam of an energy of E = 430.10 AMeV was stopped in a PMMA phantom. The primary particle fluence of this irradiation was equivalent to about 5300 patient fractions (3 GyE per fraction, one fraction means one treatment per patient per day). Several parts of the equipment were placed in the forward direction of the cone of the secondary particles arising from nuclear reactions in the phantom. The equipment for a new in-beam PET scanner should be tested whether it will resist the fluence of secondaries arising from the patient treatment of about 5 years.