Radiological Use of Fast Protons

Except for electrons, the particles which have been accelerated to high energies by machines such as cyclotrons or Van de Graaff generators have not been directly used therapeutically. Rather, the neutrons, gamma rays, or artificial radioactivities produced in various reactions of the primary particles have been applied to medical problems. This has, in large part, been due to the very short penetration in tissue of protons, deuterons, and alpha particles from present accelerators. Higher-energy machines are now under construction, however, and the ions from them will in general be energetic enough to have a range in tissue comparable to body dimensions. It must have occurred to many people that the particles themselves now become of considerable therapeutic interest. The object of this paper is to acquaint medical and biological workers with some of the physical properties and possibilities of such rays. To be as simple as possible, let us consider only high-energy protons: later we can generalize to other particles. The accelerators now being constructed or planned will yield protons of energies above 125 Mev (million electron volts) and perhaps as high as 400 Met. The range of a 125 Met proton in tissue is 12 cm., while that of a 200 Met proton is 27 cm. It is clear that such protons can penetrate to any part of the body. The proton proceeds through the tissue in very nearly a straight line, and the tissue is ionized at the expense of the energy of the proton until the proton is stopped. The dosage is proportional to the ionization per centimeter of path, or specific ionization, and this varies almost inversely with the energy of the proton. Thus the specific ionization or dose is many times less where the proton enters the tissue at high energy than it is in the last centimeter of the path where the ion is brought to rest. These properties make it possible to irradiate intensely a strictly localized region within the body, with but little skin dose. It will be easy to produce well collimated narrow beams of fast protons, and since the range of the beam is easily controllable, precision exposure of well defined small volumes within the body will soon be feasible. Let us examine the properties of fast protons somewhat more quantitatively. Perhaps the most important biological quantity is the specific ionization, or number of ions per centimeter of track. This quantity is not difficult to calculate. The results of such calculations are shown in Figure 1, where the range of protons in tissue is plotted for protons of various energies. In the same figure, the specific ionization is plotted as a function of the range in tissue. For purposes of calculation, tissue has been assumed to have the molecular formula (1): C0.5H8O3.8N0.14, and to be of unit density, i.e., 15 per cent protein and 85 per cent water. The calculations can be easily extended to other materials and densities.2 The accuracy is perhaps 5 per cent.