Particle therapy system

Abstract

A particle therapy system capable of increasing the number of patients treated in one treatment room per unit time. The particle therapy system comprises a charged particle beam generator for generating an ion beam, an irradiation apparatus for irradiating the ion beam extracted from the charged particle beam generator to an irradiation target, a beam transport system for transporting the ion beam extracted from the charged particle beam generator to the irradiation apparatus, and a central control unit for producing a set of command data to command excitation currents for magnets disposed in the charged particle beam generator and the beam transport system, the set of command data being classified into group-1 data and group-2 data.

Description

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION [0001] 1. Field of the Invention [0002] The present invention relates to a particle therapy system, and more particularly to a particle therapy system for irradiating a charged particle beam, such as a proton or carbon ion beam, to a diseased part for treatment. [0003] 2. Description of the Related Art [0004] There is known a therapy method of irradiating a charged particle beam, such as a proton beam, to a diseased part, e.g., a cancer, in the body of a patient. A large-scaled one of therapy systems used for practicing such a therapy method conventionally comprises a charged particle beam generator, a beam transport system, and a plurality of treatment rooms. The charged particle beam accelerated by the charged particle beam generator reaches an irradiation apparatus in each treatment room through the beam transport system, and it is irradiated to the diseased part in the patient body from a nozzle of the irradiation apparatus. For that purpose, the beam...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

The present invention provides a particle therapy system with a plurality of treatment rooms that can increase the number of patients treated in one treatment room per unit time. This is achieved by producing a group of command values that command excitation currents for magnets disposed in a charged particle beam generator and a beam transport system, and by using the second command value group to command the excitation currents for other magnets when only the rotating gantry angle is different. The use of the second command value group can greatly reduce the search time required for specifying the necessary command value group and can shorten the beam setting time. Additionally, the invention includes an angle development computing unit for computing the second command value group depending on the rotation angle of the rotating gantry and an energy development computing unit for computing the first and second command value groups depending on the beam energy. This allows for a larger beam automatically settable range of the control unit and can enlarge the beam treatment room.

Problems solved by technology

This means that if the beam setting takes a long time, a standby time is prolonged and treatment efficiency lowers.

In the beam setting step, the control unit takes a relatively long time to search for, from among the very large number of command value groups, a particular command value group corresponding to the beam requested from the treatment room, and hence a time required for the beam setting is prolonged.

Images