Dataset for Fetal dose evaluation during head and breast irradiation with protons, helium, and carbon ions: can particle therapy be safely applied for pregnant patients? Part A - Protons and helium ions

Image dataset of Fluorescence Nuclear Track Detectors (FNTDs) positioned in the fetus area of a female pregnant phantom during head tumour and breast tumour irradiation with primary protons and helium ions.

This dataset was generated in:
Stengl C, Mooshammer C, Kurth V, Mahnke J, Koczur B, Kunert P, Schmidt S, Ackermann B, Harrabi S, Jäkel O, Vedelago J. (2026), "Fetal dose evaluation during head and breast irradiation with protons, helium, and carbon ions: can particle therapy be safely applied for pregnant patients?"

The FNTD dataset for primary carbon ions also used in the mentioned publication can be found here:
Stengl, Christina; Mooshammer, Christina; Vedelago, José (2025), “Dataset for Fetal dose evaluation during head and breast irradiation with protons, helium, and carbon ions: can particle therapy be safely applied for pregnant patients? Part B - Carbon ions”, Mendeley Data, V1, doi: 10.17632/ty3txsjs27.1

Dataset overview:
This datasets contains 4 zip files, each of them containing FNTD data for one irradiation.
- 8-BP-FNTD-Breast-Protons.7z contains FNTDs irradiated with primary protons for a breast tumour.
- 10-HP-FNTD-Head-Protons.7z contains FNTDs irradiated with primary protons for a head tumour.
- 11-BH-FNTD-Breast-Helium-ions.7z contains FNTDs irradiated with primary helium ions for a breast tumour.
- 11-HH-FNTD-Head-Helium-ions.7z contains FNTDs irradiated with primary helium ions for a head tumour.
Each zip contains 12 FNTDs (0-11) with 0-2 positioned in fetal position 1 (fetal feet), 3-5 positioned in fetal position 2 (fetal head), 6-9 positioned in fetal position 3 (fetal spine), and 10-12 positioned in fetal position 4 (fetal head).

Image acquisition:
Detectors were read out with a dedicated confocal laser scanning microscopy (FXR700RG) and were scanned at multiple x–y positions and at each x–y position, a z-stack was recorded. For every image, two channels were acquired:
- fl – fluorescence image (ionizing particle tracks)
- re – reflection image (surface and structural information)
A field containing a track that exhibited an LET value above 100 keV/µm and contributed over 25 % to the total dose equivalent was further inspected. If the track in that field was actually an image artefact, the field was excluded from the analysis, resulting in three fields excluded from a total of 5760 fields, considering all datasets from the mentioned publication.

File naming convention:
Each image name follows the structure
FNTD_aa_ybb_xcc_zddee_f.png
where
aa = detector number (01, 02, ...)
bb = y index
cc = x index
dd = z slice index
ee = channel ("fl" or "re")
f = detector index without leading zero (0, 1, ...)