Adaptive aperture
AssigneeMevion Medical Systems, Inc.
InventorsGerrit Townsend Zwart, Mark R. Jones, Miles S. Wagner, James Cooley, Eros Pedroni, Robert Silva
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
An example particle therapy system includes a particle accelerator to output a particle beam having a spot size; a scanning system for the particle accelerator to scan the particle beam in two dimensions across at least part of a treatment area of an irradiation target; and an adaptive aperture between the scanning system and the irradiation target. The adaptive aperture includes structures that are movable relative to the irradiation target to approximate a shape to trim part of the treatment area. The part of the treatment area has a size that is based on an area of the spot size.
Claims21
1-56. (canceled)
A device to trim a particle beam, the device comprising:
- a carrier configured to move in a direction into a field that is scanned by the particle beam, the carrier comprising multiple leaves comprised of material to block passage of the particle beam, the multiple leaves being arranged on the carrier to move along with the carrier and being configured to move outward from the carrier in the direction and further into the field, the multiple leaves together defining an edge that is movable into a path of the particle beam such that a first part of the particle beam on a first side of the edge is blocked by the multiple leaves and such that a second part of the particle beam on a second side of the edge is not blocked by the multiple leaves, the multiple leaves being controllable to configure the edge to trim a single spot defined by a cross-section of the particle beam, and the multiple leaves being controllable to configure the edge to trim an area to be covered by multiple spots of the particle beam, the multiple leaves being individually and collectively smaller than the field.
The device of claim 68, wherein the first multiple leaves are controllable to configure the first edge differently for different depth-wise layers of an irradiation target to be treated by the particle beam, and the second multiple leaves are controllable to configure the second edge differently for different depth-wise layers of the irradiation target to be treated by the particle beam.
A particle therapy system comprising:
- a particle accelerator to generate a particle beam;
- one or more scanning magnets to scan the particle beam relative to an irradiation target in a patient;
- and
- a device to trim the particle beam so that at least part of a spot of the particle beam reaches the irradiation target, the device being between the one or more scanning magnets and the patient, the device comprising:
- a carrier configured to move in a direction into a field that is scanned by the particle beam, the carrier comprising multiple leaves comprised of material to block passage of the particle beam, the multiple leaves being arranged on the carrier to move along with the carrier and being configured to move outward from the carrier in the direction and further into the field, the multiple leaves together defining an edge that is movable into a path of the particle beam such that a first part of the particle beam on a first side of the edge is blocked from reaching the patient by the multiple leaves and such that a second part of the particle beam on a second side of the edge is not blocked by the multiple leaves and reaches the irradiation target, the multiple leaves being controllable to define the edge based on a size of the spot independent of other spots of the particle beam, the multiple leaves being individually and collectively smaller than the field.
A device to trim a particle beam, the device comprising:
- a carrier configured to move in a direction into a field that is scanned by the particle beam, the carrier comprising multiple leaves comprised of material to block passage of the particle beam, the multiple leaves being arranged on the carrier to move along with the carrier and being configured to move outward from the carrier in the direction and further into the field, the multiple leaves together defining an edge that is movable into a path of the particle beam such that a first part of the particle beam on a first side of the edge is blocked by the multiple leaves and such that a second part of the particle beam on a second side of the edge is not blocked by the multiple leaves, the multiple leaves being controllable to configure the edge to trim a single spot defined by a cross-section of the particle beam by blocking the first part of the particle beam, the multiple leaves being controllable to configure the edge to perform trimming on an individual spot-by-spot basis during scanning by the particle beam, the multiple leaves being individually and collectively smaller than the field.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.