Development of a next-generation medical accelerator, quantum scalpel, for heavy-ion radiotherapy

Radiotherapy using energetic carbon beams from the Heavy Ion Medical Accelerator in Chiba (HIMAC) has been carried out at the National Institutes of Quantum Science and Technology (QST) since 1994, and cancer treatment for more than 15,000 patients was conducted by now. To further promote widespread proliferation of heavy-ion facilities and concurrently to maximize the potential of heavy-ion therapy, a project to develop a next-generation compact medical accelerator, the Quantum Scalpel project, was proposed. The compact accelerator employs superconducting technology to reduce the footprint of the entire accelerator system and the accelerator can provide various therapeutic beams of helium, carbon, oxygen, and neon ions having the energy of 430-56 MeV/u to advanced heavy-ion therapy. We report the overview as well as the present status of the Quantum Scalpel project. (author)