A novel range-verification method using ionoacoustic wave generated from spherical gold markers for particle-beam therapy: a simulation study

This study proposes a novel alternative range-verification method for proton beam with acoustic waves generated from spherical metal markers. When proton beam is incident on metal markers, most of the resulting pressure waves are confined in the markers because of the large difference in acoustic impedance between the metal and tissue. However, acoustic waves with frequency equal to marker’s resonant frequency escape this confinement; the marker briefly acts as an acoustic transmitter. Herein, this phenomenon is exploited to measure the range of the proton beam. We test the proposed strategy in 3-D simulations, combining the dose calculations with modelling of acoustic-wave propagation. A spherical gold marker of 2.0 mm diameter was placed in water with a 60 MeV proton beam incident on it. We investigated the dependence of pressure waves on the width of beam pulse and marker position. At short beam pulse, specific high-frequency acoustic waves of 1.62 MHz originating from the marker were observed in wave simulations, whose amplitude correlated with the distance between the marker and Bragg peak. Results indicate that the Bragg peak position can be estimated by measuring the acoustic wave amplitudes from the marker, using a single detector properly designed for the resonance frequency.