Synchrotron and control technology related to beam delivery for ion therapy

Most ion beam therapy facilities have adopted the dynamic beam scanning instead of the passive scattering for beam delivery in order to avoid the reduction in the beam energy and beam fragmentation. The dynamic scanning scheme is categorized as the wobbling, raster scanning and spot scanning. In order to generate and transport the beam suitable for these dynamic scanning, the synchrotron operation techniques such as the acceleration, beam extraction and respiration gating, etc. have been developed and applied to the actual treatment successfully. For the pencil beam scanning, some facilities have already developed and demonstrated the technique on the treatment. In order to utilize the potential of the ion beam therapy as much as possible, it is expected that future facilities will develop and apply the pencil beam scanning to the actual treatment. (author)