Beam monitor detectors for medical applications.

Beam monitoring is fundamental for any particle accelerator. In particular, it is a crucial issue in medical applications of particle physics due to the required high precision and reliability. Radioisotope production and cancer radiotherapy require specific beam monitor detectors. In this paper, three recently designed instruments are reviewed. One of them is a newly designed beam monitor detector based on doped silica and optical fibres. It represents a promising solution. This apparatus can be used with various types of beams and for both hadrontherapy and radioisotope production. For this reason, a more detailed description of this multipurpose detector is provided.