Bongrand Arthur, Koumeir Charbel, Villoing Daphnée, Guertin Arnaud, Haddad Ferid, Métivier Vincent, Poirier Freddy, Potiron Vincent, Servagent Noël, Supiot Stéphane, Delpon Grégory, Chiavassa Sophie
Institut de Cancérologie de l'Ouest, 44800 Saint-Herblain, France.
GIP ARRONAX, 44800 Saint-Herblain, France.
Cancers (Basel). 2021 Apr 15;13(8):1889. doi: 10.3390/cancers13081889.
Proton therapy (PRT) is an irradiation technique that aims at limiting normal tissue damage while maintaining the tumor response. To study its specificities, the ARRONAX cyclotron is currently developing a preclinical structure compatible with biological experiments. A prerequisite is to identify and control uncertainties on the ARRONAX beamline, which can lead to significant biases in the observed biological results and dose-response relationships, as for any facility. This paper summarizes and quantifies the impact of uncertainty on proton range, absorbed dose, and dose homogeneity in a preclinical context of cell or small animal irradiation on the Bragg curve, using Monte Carlo simulations. All possible sources of uncertainty were investigated and discussed independently. Those with a significant impact were identified, and protocols were established to reduce their consequences. Overall, the uncertainties evaluated were similar to those from clinical practice and are considered compatible with the performance of radiobiological experiments, as well as the study of dose-response relationships on this proton beam. Another conclusion of this study is that Monte Carlo simulations can be used to help build preclinical lines in other setups.
质子治疗（PRT）是一种辐照技术，旨在限制正常组织损伤，同时保持肿瘤反应。为了研究其特性，ARRONAX回旋加速器目前正在开发一种与生物学实验兼容的临床前结构。一个前提条件是识别和控制ARRONAX束流线上的不确定性，与任何设施一样，这些不确定性可能导致观察到的生物学结果和剂量反应关系出现重大偏差。本文使用蒙特卡罗模拟，总结并量化了在细胞或小动物辐照布拉格曲线的临床前环境中，不确定性对质子射程、吸收剂量和剂量均匀性的影响。对所有可能的不确定性来源进行了独立研究和讨论。确定了那些有重大影响的因素，并制定了减少其影响的方案。总体而言，评估的不确定性与临床实践中的不确定性相似，被认为与放射生物学实验的性能以及对该质子束的剂量反应关系研究兼容。这项研究的另一个结论是，蒙特卡罗模拟可用于帮助在其他设置中构建临床前线路。
