Ion Radiotherapy in Marburg, Germany – work on new 2D Ripple Filters

Toke Printz Ringbæk – Partikeltherapiezentrum (PTZ), Marburg, Germany

At Dept of Medical Physics, Radiotherapy Conference room, 2. floor, Nørrebrogade 44, Building 5.

At the Universitätsklinikum Gießen and Marburg, Germany, a new second generation ripple filter has been developed with two-dimensional groove structures. Using stereo lithography (rapid prototyping), probes of the new design have been made and their performance experimentally tested at Heidelberg Ionentherapiezentrum (HIT) . In addition, the Monte Carlo (MC) code SHIELD-HIT12A has been used to investigate the possible drawbacks of this new design, such as inhomogeneities in the lateral dose distribution induced by the various thickness of the ripple filter. In a normal clinical setting however, the dose inhomogeneity induced by ripple filters have been found to not add uncertainties to the dose distribution.
In addition to the discussion of the new ripple filter design, the PTZ facility at Marburg will be presented, including a short presentation of the accelerator, the treatment rooms and the possible future of PTZ.