The MedAustron particle therapy accelerator facility.

Purpose: MedAustron mission is to cure cancer by providing advanced patient care, clinical trials, applied and basic research, and know-how transfer. The facility is constantly striving to improve the therapy method of ion beam therapy, to increase its effectiveness and to make the treatment accessible to more people. Methods: The MedAustron particle therapy accelerator facility is located in Austria and delivers protons in the energy range 60–250 MeV and carbon ions 120–400 MeV/n for tumor treatment to four irradiation rooms. Clinical treatment includes two rooms with fixed beam lines horizontal and horizontal/vertical and a third room with a rotating beam line, the proton gantry. A fourth irradiation room is dedicated to research delivering carbon and helium beams and where proton beams up to 800 MeV are also provided. Results: The facility has been built, the commissioning has been completed and MedAustron is now successfully operating at its full functionality. Since the first patient treatment in December 2016, more than 2,000 patients have been treated at MedAustron. Conclusions: In this paper, we provide an overview of the facility including the world-wide first so-called rotator system used, synchronously with the gantry, to improve the quality of the beam delivered at the patient. Furthermore, we discuss about the ongoing projects for improvement of the facility, the areas of research and potential topics for collaboration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]