Proton therapy complex with three procedure rooms

An oncological research and treatment complex is described in detail where radiotherapy management uses proton beams. The whole irradiation plant is provided with three procedure rooms, viz., for intracranial irradiation, for chest, neck and head irradiation and for uro-gynecological applications. The proton beam is extracted from an accelerator as short pulses of about 100 ns in duration at a repetition frequency of 0.3 Hz. Beam intensity is 1010 to 1011 particles per pulse. Only about 8% of particles accelerated up to the necessary energy are used for medical purposes. The rest is accelerated on for use in heavy particle physics experiments. Data on patients and clinical results are summarized. (L.O.). 4 figs., 3 tabs., 10 refs