Within the next few years, NIU will begin operating a proton therapy facility. As part of this, the physics department in initiating a new program in medical physics R&D.
The first effort is in using the proton beam itself to aid in diagnosis through the development of proton computed tomography (pcT) which can give additional information to normal CT scans (which use photons) and MRIs.
Energetic proton beams have distinct features that set them apart from photons and make them desirable for cancer therapy as well as medical imaging.
Proton computed tomography (pCT) solves one important problem related to X-ray CT-based proton treatment planning: the relatively large uncertainty in the exact position of the Bragg peak.
