Preliminary design of a dedicated proton therapy linac

The preliminary design has been completed for a low current, compact proton linac dedicated to cancer therapy. A 3 GHz side-coupled structure accelerates the beam from a 70 MeV drift tube linac using commercially available S-band rf power systems and accelerating cavities. This significantly reduces the linac cost and allows incremental energies up to 250 MeV. The short beam pulse width and high repetition rate make the linac similar to the high energy electron linacs now used for cancer therapy, yet produce a proton flux sufficient for treatment of large tumors. The high pulse repetition rate permits raster scanning, and the small output beam size and emittance result in a compact isocentric gantry design. Such a linac will reduce the facility and operating costs for a dedicated cancer therapy system