Enhanced biological effectiveness with carbon nanoparticles in proton therapy: a simulation study

• Published in: European physical journal plus 2023-06, Vol.138 (6), p.538, Article 538
• Main Authors: Tabbakh, Farshid, Hosmane, Narayan S.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Alpha particles; Alpha rays; Applied and Technical Physics; Atomic; Atoms & subatomic particles; Biological effects; Boron; Carbon; Charged particles; Complex Systems; Condensed Matter Physics; Deoxyribonucleic acid; DNA; Energy; Energy transfer; Heat treating; Ions; Linear energy transfer (LET); Mathematical and Computational Physics; Molecular; Nanoparticles; Optical and Plasma Physics; Physics; Physics and Astronomy; Protons; Radiation therapy; Recoil; Regular Article; Relative biological effectiveness (RBE); Theoretical; Therapy; Toxicity
• ISSN: 2190-5444; 2190-5444
• DOI: 10.1140/epjp/s13360-023-04150-7

The methods of proton targeted therapy have been proposed in many researches as the technique to enhance the biological effectiveness of proton therapy. In this regard, different materials, such as high- Z targets or boron and, recently, carbon nanoparticles, have been tested theoretically and experimentally. The present work as the continuation of our previous study has been performed to assess the method of using the carbon nanoparticles in proton therapy. The carbon nanoparticles inclusion not only increased the dose related to the high Linear Energy Transfer (LET) secondary alpha particles (100% increase) but also, led to two phenomena with greater impacts; the recoil carbon ions into the cancerous tissue and the slowed-down primary protons when passing through the target. The calculations showed 300% increase in dose related to the recoil carbon ions. Also, an enhancement in total proton effectiveness was observed from the small fraction of the primary protons which have been slowed down by the target atoms and fallen into the higher-LET region. Hence, the dose related to the low energy protons enhanced up to several orders of magnitude and a considerable increased in total proton dose as well. The present study has been performed in a micro-scale and using GEANT4 for dose evaluation and GEANT4-DNA as the extension of GEANT4 code for studying the induced DNA damages from mentioned charged particles. The novelty of this work is the demonstration of the potential for enhancing the Relative Biological Effectiveness in conventional proton therapy significantly.