2025
12:00 PM - 01:00 PM
Tuesday Tue
Location
Medical Physics Seminar - Susu Yan
Democratization of Proton Therapy
Time:
12:00pm – 1:00pm Seminar & Discussion
Location:
Zoom Webinar
Webinar Registration:
https://stanford.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_b2IN2697TZKfXr0ghg4EIw
Check your email for the Zoom webinar link after you have registered
Speaker
Dr. Susu Yan, Ph.D., Medical Physicist, Department of Radiation Oncology at Massachusetts General Hospital
Dr. Susu Yan is a medical physicist in the Department of Radiation Oncology at Massachusetts General Hospital. She earned her PhD in Medical Physics from Duke University. Dr. Yan's current research focuses on the global democratization of proton therapy, with the goal of increasing its accessibility to patients worldwide. Her innovative work aims to lower the capital costs associated with proton therapy by developing gantry-less compact proton treatment systems. Through her research, Dr. Yan has demonstrated that gantry-less proton therapy, when combined with modern beam delivery techniques, could be as effective as traditional gantry-based treatments for most disease sites. In addition, her work incorporates soft robotic immobilization and patient positioning devices in sitting orientation, enhancing the feasibility and precision of proton therapy. The combination of these advances holds great promise for making proton therapy more widely accessible.
Abstract
Proton therapy offers significant physical advantages over conventional photon therapy, and both the availability and demand for proton therapy are growing exponentially. However, in absolute terms, its availability remains very limited, with less than 1% of all radiation therapy patients receiving proton therapy, despite the fact that between 15% and 50% could benefit from it. This discrepancy is primarily due to the high cost and large size of proton therapy equipment, which does not fit within conventional treatment spaces. A major contributor to both the size and cost is the large 100-ton proton gantry, which bends the beam around the patient to deliver radiation from various angles. Our strategy is to reduce the size and cost of the proton therapy system by eliminating the gantry. The proposed solution is to use a fixed horizontal beamline for treatment. To maintain treatment quality, the patient would need to be repositioned relative to the fixed beamline. This presentation will cover several research areas at MGH, including the analysis of the necessity of a proton gantry, a treatment planning study demonstrating the feasibility of gantry-less treatment, the development of a prototype soft robotics immobilization device, and the integration of ultra-low field MRI with compact proton therapy.