Use of Nanoparticles in Brachytherapy - An Alternative for Enhancing Doses in Cancer Treatment

摘要

The aim of this study is to demonstrate that the use of gold nanoparticles may enhance the dose in the tumour cells during brachytherapy. A Monte Carlo transport code, MCNPX was used to estimate this dose enhancement. The high-intensity 192Ir source design, for high dose-rate (HDR) brachytherapy is used in the simulation. The l92Ir source was located at the uterus phantom proposed by Eckerman and Cristy, 1996. The current study considered three levels of gold nanoparticles concentration within the tumour: 7, 18 and 30 mg Au/g tissue assuming no presence of gold outside the tumour. The dose enhancement factor for gold nanoparticles within the tumour region ranged from 5% to 20% depending on the radial distance from the source and the gold concentration level within the tumour. It is concluded that the use of nanoparticles like Au are promising in the brachytherapy treatment because of high effectiveness for the enhancing of doses within the tumour cells. This enhancing effect has a substantial advantage in reducing the number of daily fractions of radiation in the tumour, compared with the conventional treatment.