Proton therapy is a treatment modality of increasing utility in clinical radiation oncology mostly because its dose distribution conforms more tightly to the target volume than X-ray radiation therapy. One important feature of proton therapy is that it produces a small amount of positron-emitting isotopes along the beam-path through the non-elastic nuclear interaction of protons with target nuclei such as 12C, 14N, and 16O. These radio isotopes, mainly 11C, 13N, and 15O, al low imaging the therapy dose distribution using positron emission tomography. The resulting positron emission tomography images provide a powerful tool for quality assurance of the treatment, especially when treating inhomogeneous organs such as the lungs or the head-and-neck, where the calculation of the dose distribution for treatment planning is more difficult. This pa per uses Monte Carlo simulations to predict the yield of positron emitters produced by a 250 MeV proton beam, and to simulate the productions of the image in a clinical PET scanner.
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