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Radiotherapy is one of the key components in modern cancer therapy. The
goal is to deposit sufficient dose in each cancer cell to damage it
beyond repair, triggering the cell to kill itself.
Ion beams, especially protons, have been shown to be more effective for
the treatment than photon beams. Due to their continous slowing down in
matter. The maximum of the dose deposition is reached right before
particles are stopped, resulting in a very narrow high-dose region, the
Bragg peak. In contrast to radiotherapy using photons, this allows to
deposit the dose in a well-known volume, sparing healthy tissue around
the tumour. While this is beneficial, it represents a major problem for
ion beam therapy at the same time, as the depth of the Bragg peak in
matter depends heavily on the composition of the target. Anatomical
changes of the patient during treatment, such as weight gain or loss, as
well as changes of the beam parameters of the accelerator can impact the
dose profile significantly.
In this talk, I will present several approaches to improving the
uncertainty of the proton range using tracking detectors developed for
the ATLAS IBL detector.