Monte Carlo evaluation of X-ray and proton CT for the prediction of the range of proton therapy beams

International audienceProton computed tomography (CT) has been described as a solution to image the proton relative stopping power (RSP) of patient tissues and could therefore reduce the uncertainty and associated margins of the conversion of X-ray CT images to RSP maps. Several studies have already demonstrated the capability of proton imaging to reconstruct tissue RSP but the quantification of the improvement with respect to X-ray CT is still missing. This study aimed at quantifying the accuracy of RSP maps reconstructed from X-ray and proton CT and their impact on the prediction of proton ranges under idealized conditions, i.e., perfect detectors for the position and the energy of protons and realistic but perfectly known X-ray source andflat panel