Recent Development of Heavy-Ion Radiotherapy Technology with HIMAC

Since 1994, Heavy-Ion Medical Accelerator in Chiba, HIMAC, has treated patients of more than 9,000 with the carbon-ion radiotherapy. Recently, NIRS has been engaged in a “new treatment research project” toward the further development of the HIMAC treatment. In this project, the phase-controlled rescanning (PCR), based on a fast 3D scanning, has been developed toward “adaptive cancer radiotherapy” of both the static and moving tumors. This fast 3D scanning employs the depth scanning with multiple energy beams delivered during one operation cycle of the synchrotron, while the lateral scanning with 100 times speed-up compared with the conventional spot scanning. The new treatment research facility was constructed with HIMAC for the clinical study with this technology, which has been successfully conducted since 2011. As the next stage, a compact carbon-ion rotating gantry with the superconducting technology has been developed in order to realize the intensity modulated carbon-ion radiotherapy combined with the 3D scanning, which will bring the more accurate and shorter-course treatments owing to the higher dose concentration. This rotating gantry was already installed and its commissioning will be started within 2015. Recent development of the heavy-ion radiotherapy with HIMAC will be reported.12th International topical meeting on nuclear application of accelerators (AccApp”15