Investigation and Comparison of Metal Nanoparticles on Dose Enhancement Effect in Radiotherapy Using Monte Carlo Simulation Method

The main goal of radiation therapy is destroying the tumor so that the surrounded healthy tissues have received the least amount of radiation at the same time. In recent years, the use of nanoparticles has received much attention due to the increasing effects they can have on the deposited dose into the cancer cells. The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of nanoparticles in improving radiotherapy conditions by Monte Carlo simulation.

In this study, the geometry that was considered as the tissue of the human body was designed by Monte Carlo simulation method and distributed nanoparticles such as gold, silver, platinum, etc. into the geometry. Then the source was placed in a coordinate of this geometry and by increasing the photons to this geometry, the Dose Enhancement Factor was calculated. The simulation was performed using MCNP Code.

The results showed that platinum nanoparticles have a better performance in increasing the dose rate than other nanoparticles so that for photons with energy of 40 kV, this increase was approximately 2.5 times, also increasing the dose was directly related to increasing the concentration of nanoparticles.

Considering the sufficient biocompatibility and the degree of penetration in the target, the use of nanoparticles in radiotherapy is one of the most promising methods to increase the dose delivered to the target. Given that the cell model and the results presented in this work lead to a better understanding of the effects of the distribution of platinum nanoparticles in increasing the dose, these calculations are valuable.