Non-conventional dosimetry for radiation oncology treatments

VEDELAGO J

Buenos Aires

Otro; Humboldt Colloquium "Shaping the Future of German-Argentinian Scientific Cooperation: The Role of Curiosity-Driven Research"; 2018

Alexander von Humboldt Foundation

Cancer radiation treatments have evolved in pursuit of increasing treatments efficiency and patients recovery. The complexity of radiotherapy treatments impose rigorous requirements to ionizing radiation dosimetry systems, being the most relevant, tissue equivalence properties, incident beam energy independence and three-dimensional capability. In this scenario, gel dosimetry arise as a promising tool to fulfill those requirements. Post-irradiation stability of gel dosimeters represents a key feature in order to optimize readout protocols, therefore several studies were carried out with this aim. Due to their relatively high complexity compared to standard dosimeters, there is still a gap between research institutions and the application of gel dosimetry in external beam radiotherapy treatments at medical facilities. Although many publications deal with this issue and there are also some commercially available options, improvements towards simpler implementations are needed. There are other radiation oncology treatments at the research stage, like the well-known Boron Neutron Capture Therapy (BNCT), which can be experimentally verified by advance gel dosimetry. Another arising trend in oncology is theranostics, which combines diagnosis and treatment simultaneously, improving procedures outcomes. Even though several trails have been made in cell cultures or in small animals, experimental determination of absorbed dose in theranostics is an open research topic that requires further investigation. An ongoing project aims to incorporate metallic nanoparticles with high atomic number to gel dosimeters in order to experimentally estimate the potential dose enhancements.