Accelerators for Medical Applications: What is so Special?

Specific requirements of accelerators for radiation therapy with protons or ions will be discussed. The focus will be on accelerator design, operational and formal aspects. We will discuss the special requirements to reach a high reliability for patient treatments as well as an accurate delivery of the dose at the correct position in the patient using modern techniques like pencil beam scanning. It will be shown that the requirements of the accelerated beam differ from those in a nuclear physics laboratory. The way of operating such a medical device requires not only operators, but also the possibility to have a safe machine operation by non accelerator specialists at different operating sites (treatment rooms). It will be shown that the organisation and role of the control/interlock system can be considered as being the most dedicated in a particle-therapy providing facility.