An Intraoperative Beta-Probe for Cancer Surgery

This thesis focuses on a novel radio-guided surgery technique for complete tumor resections. It describes all aspects of the intraoperative probe, as well as testing and simulation of the novel technique. The presentation develops the technique from the initial idea to realistic feasibility studies that have been the subject of a press release of the American Society of Nuclear Medicine. Just a year after completing this work, the technique has now been tested for the first time on a meningioma patient, confirming all of the predictions made in this thesis.

Autorentext
Francesco Collamati is a particle physicist, who, since his Bachelor's degree, has studied medical applications of particle physics. In particular, he focusses on Hadron therapy and the development of possible dosimetric techniques for application during the treatments. In his PhD at the Physics Department of Rome University Sapienza, he studied the development of an innovative Radio Guided Surgery Technique exploiting beta minus decays. He now holds a fellowship at Frascati INFN National Laboratories working on Optimization of Interaction Regions for the Future Circular Collider @Cern.

Inhalt
Introduction.- Radioguided Surgery.- The FLUKA Monte Carlo Code.- Design and Tests of the Probe.- Medical Applications.- Evaluation of Probe Performances.- Conclusion.