LBNL, Berkeley, California
At LBNL in Berkeley, clinical trials were conducted (1975-1992) for treating human cancer using ion beams from the Bevalac and treated about 700 patients with helium-ion and about 300 patients with neon-ion beams.* Clinical trials (1997-2005) at GSI in Darmstadt, Germany used carbon-ion beams to treat about 250 patients. In 1994, NIRS in Chiba, Japan, commissioned its first-in-the-world ion-beam therapy facility, HIMAC, which accelerates ions as heavy as argon nuclei to 800 MeV/nucleon. Following it, several carbon-ion therapy facilities have been, or will be soon, constructed in: Hyogo (2001) and Gunma (2010), Japan; Heidelberg (2009), Marburg (2010) and Kiel (2012), Germany; Pavia (2010), Italy; Lyon (2013), France; Wiener Neustadt (2013), Austria; Shanghai and Lanzhou, China; and Minnesota and California, USA. Technical specifications of these facilities are: ion sources delivering all ion species from proton to carbon, accelerator energy of 430 MeV/n (30-cm range in tissue), beam intensity of about 109 pps (to deliver 1 Gy/min into 1-liter volume), repetition rate of about 0.5 Hz with long spill (for beam scanning), and treatment beam delivery and patient safety systems.
* Castro, JR, "Future research strategy for heavy ion radiotherapy," in Progress in Radio-Oncology (ed. Kogelnik, H.D.), Monduzzi Editore, Italy, 643-648 (1995).
