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Radiation Therapy and Dosimetry / Advanced Radiotherapy Techniques · Journal article
Physics in Medicine and Biology · August 12, 2026
Early or partial results. Treat as a signal, not a conclusion.
This is a physics and treatment planning simulation study optimizing beam parameters for a proposed dielectric wall accelerator for proton therapy. Using computational modeling and a single pediatric CNS cancer case, the authors identify lateral spot size of approximately 1 mm and energy spread of 0.05% to 0.5% as favourable parameters, with smaller spot sizes and lower energy spreads reducing normal tissue dose while maintaining target coverage. The work is exploratory and intended to guide hardware development; clinical validation is not yet available.
Physics simulation and treatment planning optimization study with phantom validation. Homogeneous water phantom and one pediatric central nervous system cancer patient case. Intervention: Dielectric wall accelerator (DWA) proton beam with varied lateral spot size (1 to 10 mm) and beam energy spread (0.00005% to 15%). Compared with: Conventional proton beam data for validation purposes.
Lower energy spreads decreased normalized surface dose and increased depth of maximum dose in water phantom Reducing lateral spot size from 1 to 10 mm yielded greater OAR sparing while maintaining comparable target coverage in both phantom and patient cases Reduced beam energy spread showed similar trend of improved OAR sparing, though effect was less pronounced than spot size reduction
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This technical optimization study provides engineering guidance for development of a proposed compact proton therapy system but does not yet establish clinical safety or superiority. Clinicians should view these findings as preliminary hardware design recommendations requiring future clinical validation before any patient impact.
Physics modeling and optimization study of a proposed accelerator system using phantom and single patient case; establishes technical parameters for future clinical development but lacks clinical validation and comparative efficacy data.
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This technical optimization study provides engineering guidance for development of a proposed compact proton therapy system but does not yet establish clinical safety or superiority. Clinicians should view these findings as preliminary hardware design recommendations requiring future clinical validation before any patient impact.
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Abstract Objective. The dielectric wall accelerator (DWA) is proposed as a low-cost, compact system for proton therapy. It offers additional degrees of freedom over conventional accelerators for controlling beam parameters. This study seeks to determine clinically desirable proton beam characteristics by evaluating their implications for treatment plan quality; particularly, the influence of variations in lateral spot size and beam energy spread were investigated. Approach. A linear optics model of the DWA, developed in TRANSOPTR, was used to define realistic beam parameters at the accelerator exit, from which an analytical method selected those yielding the desired spot sizes and energy spreads at isocentre. These parameters were subsequently passed through a generic nozzle model in TOPAS. Lateral spot size was varied from 1 to 10 mm. Beam energy spread was varied from 0.00005% and 15%. Robustly optimized treatment plans were generated in RayStation for a homogeneous water phantom and a sample pediatric central nervous system cancer case. Results were validated against conventional proton beam data. Main results. In the water phantom study, lower energy spreads decreased the normalized surface dose and increased the depth of maximum dose. In both phantom and patient cases, reducing the lateral spot size yielded greater OAR sparing while maintaining comparable target coverage, which is in agreement with the literature. A similar trend of improved OAR sparing was observed with reduced beam energy spread for all cases; albeit, the effect was less pronounced. For realistic optimization of the DWA system, the beam parameters identified as most favourable were a lateral spot size of approximately 1 mm and an energy spread on the order of 0.05% to 0.5% for 20 to 226 MeV. Significance. These results should prove useful to both hardware and numerical efforts, and form the basis for future studies of the clinical characteristics of prospective DWA machines.
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