The Effect of the Trace Elements Concentrations on the Cancerous and Healthy Tissues in Radiotherapy

Abstract

The study is aimed to investigate the effect of the trace element concentrations in healthy and cancerous prostate tissues on dose distributions in radiotherapy. In this work, the trace element compounds completely soluble in the water were used and their concentrations given in the literature were mixed homogeneously with pure water. This is the first time study in literature as far as we know. The percent depth dose (PDD) measurements were performed using Elekta Synergy Platform Linac device for 6 and 18 MV photon energies. We also obtained the PDDs results by choosing higher trace element concentrations than given in literature in cancerous prostate tissue to see the effect on radiotherapy. The experimental measurements were compared with the results obtained from the GATE simulation code. The TPR20/10 was calculated for 10 × 10 cm2 field size at 6/18 MV energies photons and compared with simulation results. The differences between simulation and measurement for 6 MV and 18 MV photons are 1.75% and 1.82% respectively. The experimental results and simulations were presented an uncertainty lower than 3%. Simulated dose values are in good agreement with less than 2% differences with the experimental results. We see that the trace element concentrations of healthy and cancerous tissues did not affect the dose distribution at high-energy photons. This is expected and well known result. We believe that this in vitro study is important for proving the reliability of the dose given in radiotherapy treatment once again.