Ranges of protons in biological targets

Márius Pavlovič – Andreas Hammerle

   The paper introduces a simple fitting function for quick assessment of proton ranges in biological targets and human tissues. The function has been found by fitting an extensive data set of Monte Carlo proton ranges obtained with the aid of the SRIM-2013 code. The data has been collected for 28 different targets at 8 energies in the interval from 60 MeV to 220 MeV. The paper shows that at a given kinetic proton-beam energy, the Monte Carlo ranges can be satisfactorily fitted by a power function that depends solely on the target density. This is a great advantage for targets, for which the exact chemical composition is not known, or the mean ionizing potential is not reliably known. The satisfactory fit is meant as the fit that stays within the natural range straggling of the Monte Carlo ranges. In the second step, the energy-scaling yielding a universal fitting formula for proton ranges as a function of proton-beam energy and target density is introduced and discussed.

Keywords: biological targets, proton range, proton therapy, range straggling, SRIM

[full-paper]