TIFPA cross-talk #2

Chiara La Tessa graduated in Physics at the University of Naples and received her PhD in Physics at Chalmers University of Technology (Goteborg, Sweden). She worked as a postdoc at Tor Vergata University of Rome and at GSI (Darmstadt, Germany), where she eventually became tenured and leader of the radiation physics group. She worked as facility coordinator at the NASA Space Radiation Laboratory (NSRL) at Brookhaven National Laboratory (Upton NY, US) and in 2016 she joined the University of Trento, where she is currently associate professor.

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Chiara La Tessa

University of Trento and TIFPA

The magic of nuclear physics in particle therapy applications

May 6, 2020; 9:30 a.m.

ABSTRACT

Nuclear interactions of charged particles with matter play a fundamental role in radiotherapy. The growing popularity of protons and carbon ions as well as the interest in finding additional candidate ions (as helium or oxygen) calls for nuclear and dosimetry measurements to validate delivery techniques. Furthermore, nuclear processes can be exploited to enhance treatment effectiveness and provide real-time verification of treatment planning versus treatment delivered. These advancements require a combination of experimental data with calculations from theoretical and Monte Carlo codes to characterize the interactions of the primary particles with different media and, as a final step, to assess their biological effects and associated health risks.
The influence of nuclear reactions on particle therapy will be discussed in the seminar. Examples of innovations obtained with the help of nuclear physics data will be discussed.

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Further readings

Durante M 625 & Paganetti H 2016 Nuclear physics in particle therapy: a review Rep. Prog. Phys. 79, 096702.

Durante M & Loeffler J S 2010 Charged particles in radiation oncology Nature Rev. Clin. Oncol. 7, 37–43.

Rovituso M & La Tessa C 2017 Nuclear interactions of new ions in cancer therapy: impact on dosimetry Transl. Cancer Res. 6, 1310–1326.

Tommasino F & Durante M 2015 Proton radiobiology Cancers 7, 353–381.

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