Unveiling the potential: a comprehensive exploration of proton therapy focalized on treatment planning

In the thesis, the heart of proton therapy which is treatment planning is carried out for thoracic lesion. Typically, the patient treatment plan is made by a medical physicist and then it is assessed by the physicians before irradiating the patient. Also, the design and the organizational aspects of proton therapy facilities, and the potential of new technologies, for example artificial intelligence in the improvement of treatment effectiveness, are discussed. The objective of this work is to offer an in-depth perspective on the transformative impact of proton therapy in advancing radiation oncology practices and to provide valuable analysis that can guide and support practitioners in this evolving field. I have created 18 different treatment plans using the software Raystation with 1, 2,3 and 4 proton fields respectively. The gantry angle used for 1-proton field are (235), (200), (270) and (315). There are 8 treatment plans using 2-proton fields and the gantry angles used are as follows (225,315), (0,270), (180,300), (200,275), (200,325), (205,280), (235,315) and (200,310). In total 4 treatment plans are made with 3-proton fields with the gantry angles, (0,200,270), (0,200,300), (0,270,335) and (0,210,310). There are 2 plans with 4- proton fields with the gantry angles (0,45,180,220) and (0,180,270,340). These plans were created, evaluated based on the clinical goals and the best, worst and some-what clinically viable plans of these 18 were analysed in the thesis. The best plan of all is the one with 2-proton field using the gantry angles (0,270) where all the organs at risk (OAR) were not irradiated beyond the assigned limits. The worst plan created was the plan with single proton field with gantry angle (270) because it does not give full coverage of the tumour and hence it is not clinically viable.