Comparative study of depth-dose distributions for beams of light and heavy nuclei in tissue-like media

Abstract

We study the energy deposition by light and heavy nuclei in tissue-like media as used for cancer therapy. The depth-dose distributions for protons, ${}^3$He, ${}^{12}$C, ${}^{20}$Ne, and ${}^{58}$Ni nuclei are calculated within a Monte Carlo model based on the GEANT4 toolkit. These distributions are compared with each other and with available experimental data. It is demonstrated that nuclear fragmentation reactions essentially reduce the peak-to-plateau ratio of the dose profiles for deeply penetrating energetic ions heavier than ${}^3$He. On the other hand, all projectiles up to ${}^{20}$Ne were found equally suitable for therapeutic use at low penetration depths.

4 pages, 3 figures

References in corpus (3)

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• Neutrons from fragmentation of light nuclei in tissue-like media: a study with GEANT4 toolkit
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• Microdosimetry of radiation field from therapeutic C-12 beam in water: a study with Geant4 toolkit
• Comparative study of RBE and cell survival fractions for ${}^1$H, ${}^4$He, ${}^{12}$C and ${}^{16}$O beams using Geant4 and Microdosimetric Kinetic model