An in silico study on the effect of host tissue at brachytherapy dose enhancement by gold nanoparticles

PurposeIridium-192 brachytherapy dose enhancement by gold nanoparticles was investigated in five different tumor tissues to observe the tissue-related differences as an effective environmental factor in the applications of nanoparticles as radio-enhancer agents.Methods and MaterialsThe brachytherapy high-dose-rate source of BEBIG Ir-192, a tumor volume with five different tissues including water, Plexiglas, soft tissue, adipose, and bone with and without a uniform distribution of gold nanoparticles were mimicked by MCNPX Monte Carlo simulation code using lattice feature. Dose enhancement factors in the tumor volume were measured separately regarding the types of tissue, and a previous study using GEometry ANd Tracking 4 simulation was used for result validation.ResultsThe results demonstrated that various types of tissue, as the host of gold nanoparticles, lead to different dose enhancement level, so that the bone and adipose have the lowest and the highest amount of dose enhancement factor with values 20.8% and 39.75%, respectively. The maximum difference of 4.8% was achieved from data benchmarking.ConclusionsThe results of this study indicate that the MCNPX code can be used as a valid tool for dose measurement in the presence of nanoparticles. Moreover, tissue types of tumor as an environmental feature, alongside with the nanoparticle's size and concentration as well as the conditions of radiotherapy, should be considered in the dose calculation.