Objective "The accuracy of dose planning and delivery in hadron beam treatment is imperative, since millimeter errors can lead to over-dosage of critical organs or under-dosage of the tumor. Treatment plans can be reliable only if controlled with the use of in-beam positron emission tomography (ib-PET). Early experiments showed that the radiation produced by activated tissues represents a much richer and ephemeral scenario than in conventional PET imaging. Unfortunately, only a small fraction of the produced radiation can be acquired because of the high noise during particle extraction. It has been shown that modularized detectors can better sustain beam brightness, but new strategies are required in order to discriminate and recovery the useful signal. This project addresses the problem of in-spill blindness with a new concept photon discrimination technique based on fully digital acquisition. The idea is to upgrade the key sub-systems of the ib-PET system recently developed jointly by the Technical University of Madrid and the University of Pisa, being the two organizations respectively the origin and the destination of the candidate. A modified version of detector read-out modules will provide real-time photon digital characterization, while coincidence processing will be completely re-invented. The proposed photon characterization and tomographic reconstruction techniques will be mainly based on a series of results that have been co-published and co-patented in the last few years by the author of the project. This project is expected to intensify the researcher’s professional maturity as a medical imaging system engineer, giving him the opportunity to complete a competitive work started with his PhD studies. The close collaboration with the host group and their industrial partners will also give him the opportunity of training with next generation detector technologies and PET applications, thus preparing the ground for new advances in the state of the art." Fields of science medical and health sciencesclinical medicineradiologynuclear medicinesocial sciencessociologysocial issuessocial inequalitiesengineering and technologymedical engineeringdiagnostic imagingnatural sciencesphysical sciencestheoretical physicsparticle physicsphotons Programme(s) FP7-PEOPLE - Specific programme "People" implementing the Seventh Framework Programme of the European Community for research, technological development and demonstration activities (2007 to 2013) Topic(s) FP7-PEOPLE-2011-IEF - Marie-Curie Action: "Intra-European fellowships for career development" Call for proposal FP7-PEOPLE-2011-IEF See other projects for this call Funding Scheme MC-IEF - Intra-European Fellowships (IEF) Coordinator UNIVERSITA DI PISA Address Lungarno pacinotti 43/44 56126 Pisa Italy See on map Region Centro (IT) Toscana Pisa Activity type Higher or Secondary Education Establishments Administrative Contact Donatella Rossi (Ms.) Links Contact the organisation Opens in new window Website Opens in new window EU contribution No data
