Radiation therapy at compact Compton sources.
The principle of the compact Compton source is presented briefly. In collision with an ultrarelativistic electron bunch a laser pulse is back-scattered as hard X-rays. The radiation cone has an opening of a few mrad, and the energy bandwidth is a few percent. The electrons that have an energy of the order of a few tens of MeV either circulate in storage ring, or are injected to a linac at a frequency of 10-100 MHz. At the interaction point the electron bunch collides with the laser pulse that has been amplified in a Fabry-Perot resonator. There are several machines in design or construction phase, and projected fluxes are 10(12) to 10(14) photons/s. The flux available at 80 keV from the ThomX machine is compared with that used in the Stereotactic Synchrotron Radiation Therapy clinical trials. It is concluded that ThomX has the potential of serving as the radiation source in future radiation therapy programs, and that ThomX can be integrated in hospital environment.
Laboratoire de l'Accélérateur Linéaire, Univ. Paris-Sud et IN2P3/CNRS, Orsay, France. Electronic address: mjacquet@lal.in2p3.fr.
Marie
M
Jacquet
Department of Physics, University of Helsinki, POB 64, FIN-00014 Helsinki, Finland.
Pekka
P
Suortti
D000818:Animals; D019583:Dose Fractionation, Radiation; D004867:Equipment Design; D019544:Equipment Failure Analysis; D006801:Humans; D008904:Miniaturization; D011882:Radiotherapy, High-Energy / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000379:methods*; D017356:Synchrotrons / Q000295:instrumentation*; D013673:Technology Assessment, Biomedical
Compton source; Radiation therapy; X-rays