Abstract: In particle therapy treatment planning, dose calculation is performed using ion stopping power ratio (SPR) maps of the tissues in the patient to predict particle ranges. Improving SPR prediction is therefore essential for accurate dose calculation and minimization of healthy tissue irradiation. Dual-layer spectral CT, a dual-energy CT imaging technique, has been investigated as an alternative to conventional single-energy CT for improved patient-specific SPR prediction in particle therapy. This dual-energy CT-based method allows for the direct prediction of SPR from quantitative measurements of relative electron density and effective atomic number using the Bethe equation, whereas the conventional single-energy CT-based method consists of indirect image data-based prediction through the conversion of calibrated CT numbers to SPR. This talk will give an overview of dual-energy CT-based SPR prediction evaluation in different experimental and clinical settings.

About the speaker: Friderike Longarino is a PhD student at the German Cancer Research Center and Heidelberg University Hospital. Her research interests focus on the investigation of dual-energy CT imaging techniques for stopping power prediction in particle therapy. She is currently a Fulbright scholar at Massachusetts General Hospital.