Contribution of secondary particles to the dose in 12C radiotherapy and other heavy ion beams

The results of experimental studies performed in a radiotherapy (12)C ion beam with a nominal energy of 500 MeV/amu and in (16)O and (56)Fe ion beams with a nominal energy of 1 GeV/amu have been described. Linear energy transfer (LET) spectra have been established by means of an LET spectrometer based on a chemically etched track detector, and the measured results were also compared with theoretical calculations obtained using the program Stopping and Range of Ions in Matter (SRIM). It was observed that with increasing depth in a beam, the LET spectra are shifted towards higher values of LET; one can also observe an important widening of the spectra along the range, as well as an increasing amount of nuclear reaction products and/or of fragments in the spectra. The relative contribution of these secondary particles to the total absorbed dose was assessed.     

医用高能光子水吸收剂量测量规范TRS-277与TRS-398比较

随着吸收剂量测量及其量值溯源理论和技术的发展,国际原子能机构先后发布了TRS-277、TRS-398号报告,规范了高能光子水中吸收剂量的测量,以满足临床应用时不确定5.0%(k=2)的要求.文中依据两个报告,从量值溯源方式、测量方法、参数引用、修正因子的来源及其确定等方面,比较了两个报告在高能光子水中吸收剂量测量中的使用差异;同时指出了应用TRS-398号报告能进一步减少测量结果的不确定度,对开展精确放射治疗具有指导意义.     

Simulation of intense particle beams with regularly distributed Gaussian subbeams

Techniques for the simulation of intense particle beams are investigated with respect to the required number of simulation particles. It is shown that for nonchaotic systems it is advantageous if the particles initially are not distributed in a statistical manner but rather arranged in a regular pattern in phase space. This reduces the number of required simulation particles drastically. In the case of such an initially regular arrangement of particles the algorithm which assigns the charges of the particles to the computation mesh becomes of prime importance. The performances of different commonly used algorithms are investigated. The Gaussian assignment algorithm proved far superior to other more commonly used techniques, allowing simulations even at the theoretical limit of 1 particle per cell. Examples for very accurate simulations of beam dynamics with very few particles using an initially regular mesh of particles and Gaussian assignment are given.     

TOF-SIMS二次离子光学系统仿真研究

为实现飞行时间二次离子质谱仪(TOF-SIMS)对二次离子束的提取并提高仪器的调试效率,采用离子光学仿真软件SIMION 8.0对TOF-SIMS二次离子光学系统进行仿真。以稳定同位素铜离子为对象,通过仿真,研究二次离子光学系统中二次离子提取系统透镜电极电压的调整对质量分辨率的影响,确定最佳透镜电极电压组合,并得到稳定同位素铜离子的仿真谱图。仿真研究表明:当初级提取电极电压为800 V、单透镜有效电极电压为-4 400 V时,质量分辨率最高。在TOF-SIMS实验平台上对铜样品靶进行实验测试,实验与仿真结果相吻合,表明设计的二次离子光学系统可用于TOF-SIMS仪器的二次离子束提取,为实验参数的选择提供参考,从而提高仪器调试效率。     

Assessment of personnel absorbed dose at production of medical radioisotopes by a cyclotron

The medical radioisotope (201)Tl is produced by a cyclotron through the (203)Tl(p, 3n)(201)Pb reaction in the nuclear medicine research group of Agricultural, Medical and Industrial Research Schools in Iran. The produced (201)Pb decays to (201)Tl by electron capture. One of the most important problems that may occur is malfunction of a part of target or beam line, so that it needs the bombardment to be stopped and the problem fixed. In this work, induced radioactivity of the target, aluminium case of target, beam line and concrete walls of the thallium target room were calculated by Monte Carlo method. Then by using the results of the Monte Carlo simulation, the whole body absorbed dose to cyclotron personnel during repair and after stopping the bombardment, were assessed at different places of target room.     

Simulation of light ion induced DNA damage patterns

The biophysical simulation code PARTRAC was extended by a module to handle ions heavier than alpha particles. Cross sections for ion-electron interactions were taken from He(++) ions of the same velocity and scaled by Z(eff(2))/4. Calculated linear energy transfer values, radial dose distributions and secondary electron spectra were found in agreement with experimental results. DNA damage due to irradiation of human fibroblast cells by several light ions from H to S was calculated for various energies complemented by 220 kV(p) X rays as reference radiation. With increasing linear energy transfer, the calculated total yield of double-strand breaks per dose showed saturation behaviour at about twice the value for reference radiation. When data analysis methods for experimental double-strand break yield determination were applied to the simulated DNA damage patterns, the two data sets were found in accord. The calculated patterns of DNA damage clusters were analysed on local and regional scale finding regional clusters in closer correlation to experimental cell inactivation data.     

Experimental and theoretical study of the neutron dose produced by carbon ion therapy beams

High-energy (12)C ions offer favourable conditions for the treatment of deep-seated local tumours. Several facilities for the heavy ion therapy are planned or under construction, for example the new clinical ion-therapy unit HIT at the Radiological University Clinics in Heidelberg. In order to improve existing treatment planning models, it is essential to evaluate the secondary fragment production and to include these contributions to the therapy dose with higher accuracy. Secondary neutrons are most abundantly produced in the reactions between (12)C beams and tissues. The dose contribution to tissues by a neutron is fairly small compared with the projectile and the other charged fragments due to no ionisation and the small reaction cross-sections; however, it distributes in a considerably wider region beyond the bragg-peak because of the strong penetrability. Systematic data on energy spectra and doses of secondary neutrons produced by (12)C beams using water targets of different thicknesses for various detection angles have therefore been measured in this study at GSI Darmstadt.     

The production of focused ion beams for surface and gas-phase collision studies

Factors limiting the performance of practical ion beam systems are discussed and include momentum dispersion, instabilities, space-charge repulsion and extraction optics. An approach to overall design is illustrated by an accelerator system employing low energy extraction and used for a range of working conditions and ion species.     

Biological weighting of absorbed dose in radiation therapy

Absorbed dose is a quantity which is scientifically rigorously defined and used to quantify the exposure of biological objects, including humans, to ionising radiation. There is, however, no unique relationship between absorbed dose and induced biological effects. The effects induced by a given absorbed dose to a given biological object depend also on radiation quality and temporal distribution of the irradiation. In radiation therapy, empirical approaches are still used today to account for these dependencies in practice. In hadron therapy (neutrons, protons, ions), radiation quality is accounted for with a diversity of (almost hospital specific) methods. The necessity to account for temporal aspects is well known in external beam therapy and in high dose rate brachytherapy. The paper reviews the approaches for weighting the absorbed dose in radiation therapy, and focusses on the clinical aspects of these approaches, in particular the accuracy requirements.     

Relation between absorbed dose, charged particle equilibrium and nuclear transformations: a non-equilibrium thermodynamics point of view

We present a discussion to show that the absorbed dose D is a time-dependent function. This time dependence is demonstrated based on the concepts of charged particle equilibrium and on radiation equilibrium within the context of thermodynamic non-equilibrium. In the latter, the time dependence is due to changes of the rest mass energy of the nuclei and elementary particles involved in the terms summation operator Q and Q that appear in the definitions of energy imparted epsilon and energy deposit epsilon(i), respectively. In fact, nothing is said about the averaging operation of the non-stochastic quantity mean energy imparted epsilon, which is used in the definition of D according to ICRU 60. It is shown in this research that the averaging operation necessary to define the epsilon employed to get D cannot be performed with an equilibrium statistical operator rho(r) as could be expected. Rather, the operation has to be defined with a time-dependent non-equilibrium statistical operator rho(r, t); therefore, D is a time-dependent function D(r,t).     

Neutron production in tissue-like media and shielding materials irradiated with high-energy ion beams

Secondary neutrons produced in high-energy therapeutic ion beams require special attention since they contribute to the dose delivered to patient, both to tumour and to the healthy tissues. Moreover, monitoring of neutron production in the beam line elements and the patient is of importance for radiation protection aspects around ion therapy facility. Monte Carlo simulations of light ion transport in the tissue-like media (water, A-150, PMMA) and materials of interest for shielding devices (graphite, steel and Pb) were performed using the SHIELD-HIT and MCNPX codes. The capability of the codes to reproduce the experimental data on neutron spectra differential both in energy and angle is demonstrated for neutron yield from the thick targets. Both codes show satisfactory agreement with the experimental data. The absorbed dose due to neutrons produced in the water and A-150 phantoms is calculated for proton (200 MeV) and carbon (390 MeV/u) beams. Secondary neutron dose contribution is approximately 0.6% of the total dose delivered to the phantoms by proton beam and at the similar level for both materials. For carbon beam the neutron dose contribution is approximately 1.0 and 1.2% for the water and A-150 phantoms, respectively. The neutron ambient dose equivalent, H(10), was determined for neutrons leaving different shielding materials after irradiation with ions of various energies.     

Analyses of absorbed dose to tooth enamel against external photon exposure

Absorbed dose to tooth enamel was examined against external photon exposure by measurements with thermoluminescence dosemeters (TLDs) and Monte Carlo calculations. TLDs were placed in a realistic physical phantom to measure dose to the teeth region in a head. A voxel-type phantom was constructed from computed tomography (CT) images of the physical phantom. Monte Carlo calculations with this voxel-type phantom were performed to analyse the results of the experiments. The data obtained were compared to the enamel doses, which were calculated with a modified MIRD-type phantom and already given in a previous paper. It was confirmed that the data derived with the MIRD-type phantom are applicable for retrospective individual dose assessments by electron spin resonance (ESR) dosimetry using teeth for the photon energy region above 300 keV. The analysis, however, indicated that the configuration of the head can affect the enamel dose relative to external exposure to photons with energy below 100 keV.     

水吸收剂量计性能测试

针对我国用于肿瘤治疗水中吸收剂量测量的剂量计不能直接溯源到水吸收剂量,无法与国际水吸收剂量测量方法接轨的问题,该文研制60Coγ射线水中吸收剂量绝对测量装置。为配合国内肿瘤治疗的水吸收剂量测量,对现有剂量计升级,使其更便于水吸收剂量测量,并对升级9606B剂量计的重复性、非线性和电离室的能量响应进行测试。结果表明:该剂量计的重复性、非线性、电离室能量响应均好于JJG 912——2010《治疗水平电离室剂量计》和IEC 60731——2011《用于放射治疗的电离室剂量计》中对相应参数的要求。     

MCNPX alpha particle dose estimate to the skin tissue from a low-enriched uranium fuel fragment

Three alpha volume sources (low-enriched uranium-U(3)Si) were analysed using Monte Carlo modelling in order to calculate the dose delivered to the dermis from a small embedded fuel fragment (sliver). Three shapes were analysed using MCNPX 2.6.0 code: sphere, cylinder and parallelepiped. Essentially, two kinds of runs were performed: count rate run and dosimetry run. The two results were combined to estimate dose coefficients that can be used for alpha dose assessments in the field. The two results were obtained for the 1 and 0 cm counting geometries. These results are very stable and show that the actual dose delivered to the skin per unit count rate for the recovered particle is independent of the shape of the volume alpha source.     

Simulation of light scattering from a particle upon a wafer surface

We simulated light scattering from a particle located on a smooth surface. We developed a new approach utilizing the discrete sources method based on a strict mathematical model for this scattering problem. The main features of the corresponding numerical algorithm are presented. The results of modeling and comparisons with other theoretical results and experimental data are shown as well.     

Determination of absorbed dose in the vicinity of a neutron source

A computational method is presented that transfers the spectral neutron fluence from the measuring position to a reference point in a biological sample. The method is applied to the determination of the absorbed dose in adult blood irradiated with monoenergetic neutrons of 0.035 and 14.8 MeV.     

Integration of scanning probes and ion beams

We report the integration of a scanning force microscope with ion beams. The scanning probe images surface structures non-invasively and aligns the ion beam to regions of interest. The ion beam is transported through a hole in the scanning probe tip. Piezoresistive force sensors allow placement of micromachined cantilevers close to the ion beam lens. Scanning probe imaging and alignment is demonstrated in a vacuum chamber coupled to the ion beam line. Dot arrays are formed by ion implantation in resist layers on silicon samples with dot diameters limited by the hole size in the probe tips of a few hundred nm.