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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2021 Dec 2.
Published in final edited form as: Nat Rev Phys. 2021 Sep 17;3(12):777–790. doi: 10.1038/s42254-021-00368-5

Figure 3. Impact of lateral scattering on treatment planning.

Figure 3

The image shows an optimized plan with two opposite fields for a chordoma patient using protons (left) or 12C ions (right). Colour scale represents the delivered relative biological effectiveness-weighted dose relative to the target dose of 2 Gy, prescribed to the planning target volume (purple line). The dose halo in the proton plan is caused by the larger lateral scattering of the light protons compared with the heavier carbon nuclei. Image from the GSI patient project archive, distributed under Creative Commons CC BY 4.0.