ENERGY-LOSS MEASUREMENTS OF 27 MEV PROTONS IRRADIATING WATER-EQUIVALENT MATERIALS

The use of proton beams represents one of the most innovative fields o f application in Radiotherapy. The interest is growing up in consideri ng the possibility offered by proton beams and, in general, by ions to increase the target dose while reducing the outside dose at healthy t issues. Clinical proton beam dosimetry represents a fundamental aspect to exploit the features of this therapy. In this paper we will report depth-dose measurements in equivalent tissue materials (polyethylene and polytetrafluoroethylene). A 27 MeV proton beam delivered by the LN S Tandem accelerator, a Markus ionization chamber and Lif-PTFE thermol uminescent disks were used to perform these investigations. Calculatio ns of the delivered doses and the experimental set-up will be describe d in detail.