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Sci—Thur AM: YIS ‐ 04: Gold Nanoparticle Enhanced Arc Radiotherapy: A Monte Carlo Feasibility Study
Author(s) -
Koger B,
Kirkby C
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
medical physics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.473
H-Index - 180
eISSN - 2473-4209
pISSN - 0094-2405
DOI - 10.1118/1.4894897
Subject(s) - imaging phantom , monte carlo method , radiation therapy , context (archaeology) , dosimetry , nuclear medicine , radius , physics , photon , materials science , biomedical engineering , optics , medicine , computer science , radiology , mathematics , paleontology , statistics , computer security , biology
Introduction: The use of gold nanoparticles (GNPs) in radiotherapy has shown promise for therapeutic enhancement. In this study, we explore the feasibility of enhancing radiotherapy with GNPs in an arc‐therapy context. We use Monte Carlo simulations to quantify the macroscopic dose‐enhancement ratio (DER) and tumour to normal tissue ratio (TNTR) as functions of photon energy over various tumour and body geometries.Methods: GNP‐enhanced arc radiotherapy (GEART) was simulated using the PENELOPE Monte Carlo code and penEasy main program. We simulated 360° arc‐therapy with monoenergetic photon energies 50 – 1000 keV and several clinical spectra used to treat a spherical tumour containing uniformly distributed GNPs in a cylindrical tissue phantom. Various geometries were used to simulate different tumour sizes and depths. Voxel dose was used to calculate DERs and TNTRs. Inhomogeneity effects were examined through skull dose in brain tumour treatment simulations.Results: Below 100 keV, DERs greater than 2.0 were observed. Compared to 6 MV, tumour dose at low energies was more conformai, with lower normal tissue dose and higher TNTRs. Both the DER and TNTR increased with increasing cylinder radius and decreasing tumour radius. The inclusion of bone showed excellent tumour conformality at low energies, though with an increase in skull dose (40% of tumour dose with 100 keV compared to 25% with 6 MV).Conclusions: Even in the presence of inhomogeneities, our results show promise for the treatment of deep‐seated tumours with low‐energy GEART, with greater tumour dose conformality and lower normal tissue dose than 6 MV.