Method and system for dose quantification

Abstract

A radiation dose quantification method and system, the method comprising: detecting, with one or more detectors with respective sensitive volumes, gamma-rays emitted as a result of capture of neutrons by a composition in a subject subjected to an irradiation program, the composition comprising one or more thermal neutron capture agents, the neutrons having been generated by non-elastic collisions between a primary beam of particles and nuclei in the subject, wherein the particles consist of any one or more of protons, deuterons, tritons and heavy ions, the irradiation program comprises at least one period of irradiation with a beam duration that includes beam-on periods and beam-off periods; applying at least one predefined energy window or filter configured to accept only detection events in the one or more detectors resulting from gamma-rays with an energy indicative of selected gamma-rays arising from the capture of thermal neutrons by the one or more thermal neutron capture agents, wherein the thermal neutrons are neutrons with energies below approximately 0.4 eV; applying a timing window configured to reject or ignore detection events in the one or more detectors resulting from at least prompt gamma-rays produced in non-neutron capture events; and determining the radiation dose of neutron radiation received by the subject during the irradiation program from at least the accepted detection events or determining a dose map of the radiation received by the subject from at least the accepted detection events.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.