Implementation of biological washout processes within GATE/GEANT4-A Monte Carlo study in the case of carbon therapy treatments

摘要

Purpose: The imaging of positron emitting isotopes produced during patient irradiation is the only in vivo method used for hadrontherapy dose monitoring in clinics nowadays. However, the accuracy of this method is limited by the loss of signal due to the metabolic decay processes (biological washout). In this work, a generic modeling of washout was incorporated into the GATE simulation platform. Additionally, the influence of the washout on the beta(+) activity distributions in terms of absolute quantification and spatial distribution was studied.