Trocar for internal irradiation radiotherapy and electron beam energy monitoring method
Technical Field
The invention relates to the technical field of internal irradiation radiotherapy, in particular to a trocar for internal irradiation radiotherapy and an electron beam energy monitoring method.
Background
The principle of radiotherapy is to use high energy radiation such as X-rays, electrons, etc. to destroy the DNA of cancer cells to kill them. Since radiation therapy kills cancer cells while also damaging normal cells, care must be taken to plan treatment to minimize this side effect. Radiation for cancer treatment can come from devices outside the body, known as external beam radiotherapy, or from radioactive materials implanted in the body near the cancer cells, known as internal beam radiotherapy or brachytherapy.
Chinese patent with application number "CN 201810907457.9," entitled "tumor treatment equipment and its using method," discloses a tumor treatment equipment and its using method, which belongs to an internal irradiation radiotherapy method, specifically: the beam needle is connected with the electron beam emitting device, and the electron beam emitted by the electron beam emitting device is shot on the tumor focus position in the human body through the beam needle to melt the tumor. Because the penetration capacity of the electron beam is weaker, higher energy can not be deposited on normal tissues before and after the tumor focus position, and the damage of the electron beam to the normal tissues can be avoided when the tumor is ablated, so that the damage to the human body is reduced, and the pain in the treatment process of the human body is reduced.
Although electron beams do not deposit higher energy on human tissue than X-rays, if the electron beam energy is not precisely controlled, either an electron beam of sufficient energy cannot be provided to ablate the tumor during treatment, or normal tissue outside the focal site of the tumor is harmed during treatment; however, in the process of guiding the electron beam emitted from the electron beam emitting device into the human body through the beam needle, certain energy loss exists, and the energy loss is not fixed and unchangeable, so that how to accurately control the energy of the electron beam emitted from the beam needle in the field becomes a technical problem to be overcome in an internal irradiation radiotherapy scheme.
Disclosure of Invention
The present invention is directed to a trocar and an electron beam energy monitoring method for internal irradiation radiotherapy, which are used to solve the above technical problems.
In order to achieve the purpose, the invention adopts the following technical scheme:
in a first aspect, the invention provides a trocar for internal irradiation radiotherapy, which comprises a needle tube, wherein a beam needle mounting through hole is penetratingly formed in the needle tube along the length direction of the needle tube, and a transparent or semitransparent crystal is arranged at one end of the needle tube on a preset electron beam transmission path; the outer side wall of the crystal is provided with a photon collector;
and a photon counter is arranged on the outer wall of one end of the needle tube, which is far away from the crystal, and the photon collector is connected with the photon counter through an optical fiber.
Optionally, a needle head is integrally formed at one end of the needle tube, and the crystal is fixedly arranged at one end of the needle head far away from the needle tube; the needle head is provided with a cavity which is communicated with the beam needle mounting through hole and extends to the surface of the crystal along the electron beam transmission path;
the crystal is in a conical shape; the tip of the cone is arranged away from the cavity and is positioned on the electron beam transmission path.
Optionally, the crystal is a quartz crystal or a sapphire crystal.
Optionally, the crystal is in a cone shape, and the needle head is in a circular truncated cone shape; the central lines of the circular truncated cone and the circular truncated cone are superposed;
the diameter of the bottom surface of the cone is equal to the diameter of the bottom surface of the side, facing the cone, of the circular truncated cone.
Optionally, a part of the electrons in the electron beam entering the crystal are emitted from the tip of the crystal, and another part of the electrons in the electron beam entering the crystal can generate photons in the crystal and emit from the outer sidewall of the crystal along a specific photon transmission direction; the included angle between the photon transmission direction and the central line of the cone is 57 degrees;
the photon collector is located in the photon transmission direction.
Optionally, the needle tube and the needle head are both made of stainless steel or silicon carbide.
Optionally, the photon collector is a fiber coupler; the photon counter is a photomultiplier or a photodiode.
Optionally, the optical fiber is welded to an outer sidewall of the trocar.
In a second aspect, the present invention also provides a method of monitoring electron beam energy for internal irradiation radiotherapy, comprising:
predetermining a corresponding relation between the energy of the electron beam emitted from the crystal by the electron beam along the electron beam transmission path and the collected photon number;
the method comprises the following steps of (1) extending a trocar into a preset radiotherapy part in a human body in advance, and inserting a beam needle into a needle tube of the trocar; wherein, the trocar adopts the trocar for the internal radiation radiotherapy;
collecting photons emitted from the crystal in real time in the process of internal irradiation radiotherapy;
and determining the energy of the electron beam currently emitted into the radiotherapy part according to the number of the collected photons.
Optionally, a predetermined gap is left between the electron beam emitting end of the beam needle and the crystal;
wherein the number of the collected photons is positively correlated with the current electron beam energy emitted into the radiotherapy part.
Compared with the prior art, the invention has the beneficial effects that:
the transparent or semitransparent crystal is arranged on the electron beam transmission path, after the electron beam enters the crystal, Cherotkoff radiation can be generated, photons are generated in the crystal and are emitted from the outer side wall of the crystal along the specific photon transmission direction, only a part of the electron beam continues to be emitted into a preset radiotherapy part in a human body along the electron beam transmission path, but the number of the photons emitted from the crystal and the energy of the electron beam emitted into the human body have positive correlation, so that the energy of the electron beam emitted into the human body at present can be accurately obtained by collecting the number of the emitted photons, and a better radiotherapy effect is achieved.
Drawings
In order to more clearly illustrate the embodiments of the present invention or the technical solutions in the prior art, the drawings used in the description of the embodiments or the prior art will be briefly described below, and it is obvious that the drawings in the following description are only some embodiments of the present invention, and for those skilled in the art, other drawings can be obtained according to these drawings without inventive exercise.
FIG. 1 is a schematic structural diagram of a trocar for internal radiation radiotherapy according to an embodiment of the present invention;
fig. 2 is a flowchart of an electron beam energy monitoring method for internal irradiation radiotherapy according to an embodiment of the present invention.
In the figure:
10. a trocar; 11. a needle tube; 12. a needle head; 121. a cavity; 13. a crystal; 14. a photon collector; 15. an optical fiber; 16. a photon counter.
Detailed Description
In order to make the objects, features and advantages of the present invention more obvious and understandable, the technical solutions in the embodiments of the present invention will be clearly and completely described below with reference to the accompanying drawings in the embodiments of the present invention, and it is obvious that the embodiments described below are only a part of the embodiments of the present invention, and not all of the embodiments. All other embodiments, which can be derived by a person skilled in the art from the embodiments given herein without making any creative effort, shall fall within the protection scope of the present invention.
Referring to fig. 1, fig. 1 is a schematic structural diagram of a trocar 10 for internal radiation radiotherapy according to an embodiment of the present invention.
The trocar 10 includes a needle tube 11, the needle tube 11 is provided with a beam needle mounting through hole in a penetrating manner along a length direction thereof, one end (bottom end of the needle tube 11 in fig. 1) of the needle tube 11 is integrally formed with a needle head 12, and the needle head 12 is provided with a cavity 121 communicated with the beam needle mounting through hole along a preset electron beam transmission path; a transparent or semitransparent crystal 13 is fixedly arranged at one end of the needle 12 far away from the needle tube 11; the crystal 13 is arranged on the electron beam transmission path; in this embodiment, the cavity 121 is a cavity with two through-going top and bottom ends.
In particular, the crystal 13 has a conical shape, forming a tip at the end facing away from the needle 12 for better insertion inside the human body, and preferably, the tip is located on the path of the electron beam.
A photon collector 14 is arranged on the outer side wall of the crystal 13; the outer wall of the end of the needle tube 11 far away from the crystal 13 is provided with a photon counter 16, and the photon collector 14 and the photon counter 16 are connected through an optical fiber 15.
In this embodiment, as a preferred embodiment, the crystal 13 is a quartz crystal or a sapphire crystal; the crystal 13 is in the shape of a cone, and the needle head 12 is in the shape of a circular truncated cone; the central lines of the circular truncated cone and the conical body are superposed; the diameter of the bottom surface of the cone is equal to the diameter of the bottom surface of one side of the circular truncated cone facing the cone.
After the electron beam is emitted through the beam current needle, a part of electrons in the electron beam entering the crystal 13 are emitted from the tip of the crystal 13, and another part of electrons in the electron beam entering the crystal 13 can generate photons in the crystal 13 and emit from the outer side wall of the crystal 13 along a specific photon transmission direction; according to the Cherenkov radiation principle, the included angle between the photon transmission direction and the central line of the cone is 57 degrees; in the present embodiment, the photon collector 14 is disposed in the photon transmission direction.
As a more specific implementation of this embodiment, the photon collector 14 is a fiber coupler; the photon counter 16 is a photomultiplier tube or photodiode. The photon number sensed by the optical fiber coupler can be converted through the detected voltage or current of the photomultiplier or the photodiode, and the method is very convenient.
Specifically, in this embodiment, the needle tube 11 and the needle 12 are made of stainless steel or silicon carbide.
Specifically, the optical fiber 15 is welded or glued to the outer sidewall of the trocar 10. It is understood, however, that the optical fiber 15 may also be integrally formed with the trocar 10 or embedded within the wall of the trocar 10 and should not be construed as limiting the scope of the present invention.
Referring to fig. 2, fig. 2 is a flowchart illustrating a method for monitoring electron beam energy for internal irradiation radiotherapy according to an embodiment of the present invention. The electron beam energy monitoring method for internal irradiation radiotherapy specifically comprises the following steps:
the presetting step 100 predetermines a correspondence between the energy of the electron beam emitted from the crystal 13 along the electron beam transmission path and the number of photons collected.
Under the laboratory environment, corresponding data between a plurality of groups of electron beam energy and photon quantity are obtained by simulating the application scene of internal irradiation radiotherapy, and the corresponding relation between the electron beam energy and the photon quantity is obtained through calculation.
It should be understood that the number of photons collected is positively correlated with the energy of the electron beam currently injected into the radiotherapy site, and after a plurality of sets of corresponding data are obtained through multiple simulations, a relatively accurate corresponding relationship may be calculated, and the corresponding relationship may have some errors.
The preset step 101 is to advance the trocar 10 into a predetermined radiotherapy site in a human body and insert the beam needle into the needle tube 11 of the trocar 10.
Step 110, collecting photons emitted from the crystal 13 in real time during the internal irradiation radiotherapy process.
Specifically, photons emitted from the crystal 13 are collected in real time by a photon collector 14 provided on an outer side wall of the crystal 13.
And step 120, determining the energy of the electron beam currently injected into the radiotherapy part according to the number of the collected photons.
Through the number of the collected photons, the electron beam energy currently injected into the human body can be accurately obtained according to the corresponding relation between the predetermined electron beam energy and the number of the photons, and then the radiotherapy equipment is controlled more accurately, so that a better radiotherapy effect is achieved.
In this embodiment, a predetermined gap is left between the electron beam emitting end of the beam needle and the crystal.
Those skilled in the art will appreciate that all or part of the steps for implementing the above embodiments may be implemented by hardware, or may be implemented by controlling related hardware by a program or instructions, which may be stored in a computer-readable storage medium, and the storage medium may include a memory, a magnetic disk or an optical disk, etc.
The above-mentioned embodiments are only used for illustrating the technical solutions of the present invention, and not for limiting the same; although the present invention has been described in detail with reference to the foregoing embodiments, it will be understood by those of ordinary skill in the art that: the technical solutions described in the foregoing embodiments may still be modified, or some technical features may be equivalently replaced; and such modifications or substitutions do not depart from the spirit and scope of the corresponding technical solutions of the embodiments of the present invention.