Abstract
The use of silver nanoparticles as adjuvants in cancer radiation therapy is becoming progressively well acknowledged. Based on simulation methods, we report outcomes on dose enhancement for different silver concentrations implant and different beam energies, using GATE Monte-Carlo simulation. A digital phantom of the head was imported into GATE to provide accurate geometrical representation of the brain tissues. A 1-cm radius spherical tumor was placed at the center of the phantom. The tumor was exposed separately to three different brachytherapy sources implanted at its center: Pd-103, I-125, and Au-198. The dose enhancement factor was calculated for silver nanoparticles with concentrations up to 35 mg/g. I-125 showed a maximum dose enhancement factor of 12.55 with 35 mg/g concentration, higher than the 1.58 and 1.62 produced by Pd-103 and Au-198 respectively. However, I-125 also showed the highest enhancement to the healthy tissues. A comparison between gold and silver nanoparticles was carried out, where the emission of X-rays showed to be an important factor in determining which nanoparticle produces a higher dose enhancement factor.