title: Range prediction for tissue mixtures based on dual-energy CT.
abstract: The use of dual-energy CT (DECT) potentially decreases range uncertainties in proton and ion therapy treatment planning via determination of the involved physical target quantities. For eventual clinical application, the correct treatment of tissue mixtures and heterogeneities is an essential feature, as they naturally occur within a patient's CT. Here, we present how existing methods for DECT-based ion-range prediction can be modified in order to incorporate proper mixing behavior on several structural levels. Our approach is based on the factorization of the stopping-power ratio into the relative electron density and the relative stopping number. The latter is confined for tissue between about 0.95 and 1.02 at a therapeutic beam energy of 200 MeV u(-1) and depends on the I-value. We show that convenient mixing and averaging properties arise by relating the relative stopping number to the relative cross section obtained by DECT. From this, a maximum uncertainty of the stopping-power ratio prediction below [Formula: see text] is suggested for arbitrary mixtures of human body tissues.
authors.affiliation: German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ), Heidelberg, Germany. National Center for Radiation Oncology (NCRO), Heidelberg Institute for Radiation Oncology (HIRO.
authors.forename: Christian
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Möhler
authors.forename: Patrick
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Wohlfahrt
authors.forename: Christian
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Richter
authors.forename: Steffen
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Greilich
mesh_terms: D004583:Electrons; D006801:Humans; D061766:Proton Therapy; D061089:Radiotherapy, Image-Guided / Q000379:methods*; D014057:Tomography, X-Ray Computed; D035501:Uncertainty; D011522:Protons
chemical_list: D011522:Protons