Quantification of the radiosensitization effect of high-Z nanoparticles on photon irradiated cells: combining Monte Carlo simulations and an analytical approach to the local effect model

In vitro experiments show significant reduction in the survival fraction of cells under irradiation treatments assisted with high-Z nanoparticles (NPs). In order to predict the radiosensitization effect of NPs, a modification of the local effect model (LEM), in which the energy deposition from NPs is assessed by Monte Carlo (MC) radiation transport codes, has been employed in the past. In this work, a combined framework that splits the consideration of the radiosensitization effect into two steps is proposed. The first step is the evaluation of the radial dose distribution (RDD) around a single NP ionized by a photon beam with given energy spectrum using MC simulation. Thereafter, an analytical approach based of the LEM and the calculated RDD is used for evaluation of the average dose and the average number of lethal lesions in a cell target due to a set of ionized NPs. The explicit expressions were derived for the case of a spherical cell target and the RDD describing by the power law function. RDDs around gold NPs (GNPs) of different radii were simulated using the MC technique and fitted by a power law function. The fitted RDD and the derived expressions were applied for calculation of the survival curves and relative biological effectiveness of a spherical MDA-MB-231 cell loaded with GNPs and irradiated with monoenergetic photons of 10-150 keV. The proposed framework provides a practical alternative to time-consuming MC simulations, enabling the assessment of the response of cell cultures to an irradiation treatment assisted with NPs for a wide variety of cell geometries, NP distributions and irradiation schemes.

Automated summary

A combined framework is proposed in this study to consider the radiosensitization effect of nanoparticles (NPs) in two steps. The first step involves evaluating the radial dose distribution (RDD) around NPs using Monte Carlo (MC) simulations, followed by an analytical approach to assess the average dose and number of lesions in cell targets caused by ionized NPs. This framework provides a practical alternative to lengthy MC simulations for assessing the response of cell cultures to irradiation treatments assisted with NPs across a range of cell geometries, NP distributions, and irradiation schemes.