Effect of different cell cluster models on the radiobiological output for (211)At-radioimmunotherapy

A voxel-dose algorithm of heterogeneous activity distribution for Monte-Carlo simulation of radionuclide therapy dosimetry

PURPOSE

The organ or tumor activity is not uniform due to inhomogeneous expression/distributions of receptors/antigens and the nonuniform vascularization of the tumor tissue. However, most patient-specific three-dimensional Monte-Carlo methods for radionuclide dosimetry have dealt with quasi-homogeneous activity distributions. A voxel-by-voxel activity sample algorithm (VM) without artifacts is presented to calculate the dose of the heterogeneous activity distribution for radionuclide dosimetry.

METHODS

The source particle location is sampled according to the activity spatial distribution. The source particle weight is imparted by the relative activity concentration of its origination voxel. This algorithm is applied to calculate the dose volume histogram for multiple independent activity regions with Gauss diffusion activity distributions and then compared with the level partition method (LM). The minimal response and the mean tolerant initial total activity threshold required by tumor control probability and normal tissue complication probability for radioimmunotherapy ((131)I-RIT) also were evaluated by the voxel-by-voxel sample algorithm and the LM. The effective clearance half-time is assumed to be equal to its physical half-life (i.e., 8.02 days for (131)I).

RESULTS

The result shows that the new algorithm is more consistent with the weighted superposition of the quasi-homogeneous activity distribution than the LM, especially for the multiple independent activity regions composed of different amounts of voxels. The new algorithm effectively avoids the leveling/binning artifacts to the heterogeneous activity distribution. The (131)I-RIT simulation also showed that the minimal response initial total activity threshold of tumors will be much more than the mean tolerant initial total activity threshold of normal organs (e.g., kidney) with the activity heterogeneous grade deteriorating.

CONCLUSIONS

A VM is presented to simulate the dose of the heterogeneous activity distribution for radionuclide dosimetry. The new algorithm effectively avoids the leveling/binning artifacts to the heterogeneous activity distribution.

Combining the LKB NTCP model with radiosensitivity parameters to characterize toxicity of radionuclides based on a multiclonogen kidney model: a theoretical assessment

The Lyman-Kutcher-Burman (LKB) normal tissue complication probability (NTCP) model is often used to estimate the damage level to normal tissue. However, it does not manifestly involve the influence of radiosensitivity parameters. This work replaces the generalized mean equivalent uniform dose (gEUD) with the equivalent uniform dose (EUD) in the LKB model to investigate the effect of a variety of radiobiological parameters on the NTCP to characterize the toxicity of five types of radionuclides. The dose for 50 % complication probability (D (50)) is replaced by the corresponding EUD for 50 % complication probability (EUD(50)). The properties of a variety of radiobiological characteristics, such as biologically effective dose (BED), NTCP, and EUD, for five types of radioisotope ((131)I, (186)Re, (188)Re, (90)Y, and (67)Cu) are investigated by various radiosensitivity parameters such as intrinsic radiosensitivity α, alpha-beta ratio α/β, cell repair half-time, cell mean clonogen doubling time, etc. The high-energy beta emitters ((90)Y and (188)Re) have high initial dose rate and mean absorbed dose per injected activity in kidney, and their kidney toxicity should be of greater concern if they are excreted through kidneys. The radiobiological effect of (188)Re changes most sharply with the radiobiological parameters due to its high-energy electrons and very short physical half-life. The dose for a probability of 50% injury within 5y (D (50/5)) 28 Gy for whole-kidney irradiation should be adjusted according to different radionuclides and different radiosensitivity of individuals. The D (50/5) of individuals with low α/β or low α, or low biological clearance half-time, will be less than 28 Gy. The 50 % complication probability dose for (67)Cu and (188)Re could be 25 Gy and 22 Gy. The same mean absorbed dose generally corresponds to different degrees of damage for tissues of different radiosensitivity and different radionuclides. The influence of various radiobiological parameters should be taken into consideration in the NTCP model.