ArticleMedical physics2026
Impact of collimator misalignments on dosimetric robustness in proton minibeam radiotherapy using an automated measurement setup.
Article in Medical physics, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundProton minibeam radiation therapy is an emerging technique that combines the tissue-sparing benefits of protons with the spatial modulation used for minibeams to reduce toxicity in healthy tissue. Achieving accurate delivery of planned dose distributions depends on precise collimator-to-beam alignment, for which it is essential to understand the behavior of both multi-slit and single-slit configurations. Understanding single-slit behavior is particularly important, as it also linearly affects the heterogeneity (peaks and valleys) of the overall minibeam. While several studies have investigated misalignment effects with multi-slit collimators, there is limited experimental characterisation of single-slit behavior and its impact on multi-slit arrays. PURPOSE: This study aims to quantify the dosimetric effects of translational and rotational collimator-to-beam misalignments for single-slit proton minibeams using our in-house automated measurement setup. Additionally, the robustness of lateral dose profiles for minibeam arrays will be investigated under varying collimator misalignments.
methodsA single slit collimator with
resultsRotational misalignments caused substantial asymmetry and peak dose reductions up to 68.4% at shallow depths, with asymmetry reducing at greater depths. Translational shifts resulted in a translation of the minibeam profile in the same direction and magnitude without changing the minibeams shape. Despite these distortions, simulated minibeam arrays achieved acceptable dose homogeneity at
conclusionsCollimator misalignments substantially affect the minibeam dose robustness and should be considered in clinical treatment planning and quality assurance (QA). The presented measurement setup enables, rapid, high-resolution profile measurements using commercially available detectors and can facilitate routine clinical QA.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.