Biological Impact of Target Fragments on Proton Treatment Plans: An Analysis Based on the Current Cross-Section Data and a Full Mixed Field Approach.

ABSTRACT: Clinical routine in proton therapy currently neglects the radiobiological impact of nuclear target fragments generated by proton beams. This is partially due to the difficult characterization of the irradiation field. The detection of low energetic fragments, secondary protons and fragments, is in fact challenging due to their very short range. However, considering their low residual energy and therefore high LET, the possible contribution of such heavy particles to the overall biological effect could be not negligible. In this context, we performed a systematic analysis aimed at an explicit assessment of the RBE (relative biological effectiveness, i.e., the ratio of photon to proton physical dose needed to achieve the same biological effect) contribution of target fragments in the biologi

SUBMITTER: Bellinzona EV 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8507563 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature