Protons and Breakdown

[deleted4401]

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I heard from my physicist that at Penn, for every proton plan, they do an IMRT plan because the proton machine goes down that often. Is this true? Is this just at penn or at all proton places?

 

[Seldon1985]

I heard from my physicist that at Penn, for every proton plan, they do an IMRT plan because the proton machine goes down that often. Is this true? Is this just at penn or at all proton places?

Definitely not true at all proton places. Don't know about Penn in particular.

 

[medgator]

Definitely not true at all proton places. Don't know about Penn in particular.

I imagine it depends on the machine type and manufacturer (single vs multi room machine etc)

 

[Palex80]

I imagine it depends on the machine type and manufacturer (single vs multi room machine etc)

If the beam is down, its irrelevant how many rooms you have.

 

[deleted4401]

Yeah - it's like a water pipe in the house. If the flow stops, nobody gets a shower. Anyway, it came up because I asked my physicist if he was disappointed that he didn't work at a high tech place. He said no, an gave this as an example. His friend is the physicist for protons and told him he had to QA a proton plan and an IMRT plan for every case.

 

[Scrybe9]

That used to be the case when protons first came up, but they quickly moved away from that. Now the policy is that a backup is created only if requested by the MD or for the initial couple of months when a new technology is starting (PBS on the gantry for instance).