Evaluation of the effect of gold nanoparticles and boron injection in the treatment of breast cancer proton therapy with the code Gate7 / Geant4

Radiation therapy, the most common and successful treatment used after surgery, plays an important role in the treatment of cancer. In proton therapy, the tumor is irradiated by proton beam. To increase the treatment efficacy of breast tumors, gold nanoparticles (GNP) and boron-sodium boron (BSH) solution containing boron-11 can be injected separately into the tumor and then irradiated with proton beam. In this study, using Geant4 / Gate7 simulation, confirming the increase in the dose reached the breast tumor tissue in proton therapy was performed through two separate stages, so that in the first stage, in order to maximize the received dose by protons in the tumor, injection of sodium boron captate (BSH) containing boron-11 was used in the presence of proton beam irradiation. Also, based on the injection of different concentrations of sodium boron captate solution containing boron-11 into the breast phantom, using the Monte Carlo code Geant4 / Gate7, the number of emitted alpha particles caused by the reaction  11Bp,α 8Be estimated. As a result of alpha-proton-alpha avalanche reaction, the amount of alpha particles produced by p+ 16O→α+ 13N  more than the alpha particles produced by the reaction produced due to the  11B+p→3α+8.7MeV The findings of the simulations show that the location of the Bragg peak inside the tumor changes with increasing energy to higher depths. Also, by injecting gold nanoparticles in different amounts of 25, 50 and 75 mg / ml with simultaneous irradiation of proton beam, the absorbed dose is up to 1.75% compared to the absorbed dose due to the injection of sodium boron captate solution containing boron-11 with the same values increase. In other words, the results of this study confirm the ability of gold nanoparticles to increase the effectiveness of treatment by increasing the absorption dose in breast tumors using proton therapy.