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Review
. 2016 Winter;2(3):447-458.
doi: 10.14338/IJPT-15-00021. Epub 2016 Feb 9.

Monte Carlo Simulations of Particle Interactions with Tissue in Carbon Ion Therapy

George Dedes  1 , Katia Parodi  1
Affiliations
Review

Monte Carlo Simulations of Particle Interactions with Tissue in Carbon Ion Therapy

George Dedes et al. Int J Part Ther. 2016 Winter.

Abstract

Monte Carlo simulations are increasingly considered the most accurate tool for calculating particle interactions with tissue. This contribution reviews the basics of Monte Carlo methods and their emerging role for application to several areas of macroscopic simulation in the worldwide rapidly growing field of carbon ion therapy, spanning from dosimetric calculations to imaging of secondary radiation.

Keywords: Monte Carlo; carbon ion therapy; simulation.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflicts of interest: The authors have no conflicts of interest to disclose.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Overview of clinical-like carbon ion treatment fields for the considered homogenous and heterogeneous sites in the head and neck, reporting Monte Carlo–recalculated relative biological effectiveness–weighted dose to medium (left) and dose to water (middle) in comparison to the treatment planning system–optimized plan (right). The planning target volume (PTV) (contoured by the green line) and critically located organs at risk (OARs) (red line: spinal cord of C_Het_HN) are shown. Adapted from Bauer J, et al. Integration and evaluation of automated Monte Carlo simulations in the clinical practice of scanned proton and carbon ion beam therapy Phys Med Biol. 2014;59:4635–59.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Patient BR with glioblastoma: colorwash overlays of the treatment planning computed tomography (CT) image (TP-CT) in the coronal view with the simulated activity pattern (Sim) and the measured positron emission tomography (PET) image overlaid on the PET-CT image. Adapted from Bauer J, et al. Implementation and initial clinical experience of offline PET/CT-based verification of scanned carbon ion treatment Radiother Oncol. 2013;107:218–26.
Figure 3.
Figure 3.
Fragment buildup curves in water of a 400 MeV/u carbon beam as a fraction of primary carbon ions N/N0. Experimental data are shown as points (Haettner E. Experimental Study on Carbon Ion Fragmentation in Water Using GSI Therapy Beams [master's thesis]. https://www.kth.se/polopoly_fs/1.144272!/Menu/general/column-content/attachment/emmahaettner.pdf Accessed January 1, 2016.). Simulations done for FLUKA (solid) and for GEANT4 using the BIC LI (dashed) and the G4QMD (dotted) model are displayed as lines. The dashed vertical line indicates the position of the Bragg peak. From Böhlen TT, et al. Benchmarking nuclear models of FLUKA and GEANT4 for carbon ion therapy Phys Med Biol. 2010;55(19):5833–47
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

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