title: First biological images with high-energy proton microscopy.
abstract: High-energy proton microscopy provides unique capabilities in penetrating radiography including the combination of high spatial resolution and field-of-view, dynamic range of density for measurements, and reconstructing density variations to less than 1% inside volumes and in situ environments. We have recently proposed to exploit this novel proton radiography technique for image-guided stereotactic particle radiosurgery. Results of a first test for imaging biological and tissue-equivalent targets with high-energy (800 MeV) proton microscopy are presented here. Although we used a proton microscope setup at ITEP (Moscow, Russia) optimized for fast dynamic experiments in material research, we could reach a spatial resolution of 150 μm with approximately 10(10) protons per image. The potential of obtaining high-resolution online imaging of the target using a therapeutic proton beam in the GeV energy region suggests that high-energy proton microscopy may be used for image-guided proton radiosurgery.
authors.affiliation: GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung, Planckstrasse 1, Darmstadt, Germany.
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Varentsov
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Bogdanov
authors.forename: V S
authors.initials: VS
authors.lastname: Demidov
authors.forename: A A
authors.initials: AA
authors.lastname: Golubev
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Kantsyrev
authors.forename: P M
authors.initials: PM
authors.lastname: Lang
authors.forename: D N
authors.initials: DN
authors.lastname: Nikolaev
authors.forename: N
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Markov
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Natale
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Shestov
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Simoniello
authors.forename: G N
authors.initials: GN
authors.lastname: Smirnov
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Durante
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D005240:Feasibility Studies; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; D008853:Microscopy / Q000379:methods*; D019047:Phantoms, Imaging; D019904:Polymethyl Methacrylate; D011522:Protons; D015027:Zebrafish
chemical_list: D011522:Protons; D019904:Polymethyl Methacrylate