Prog Med Phys.  2020 Mar;31(1):1-7. 10.14316/pmp.2020.31.1.1.

Review of the Existing Relative Biological Effectiveness Models for Carbon Ion Beam Therapy

• Kim Y
• Kim J
• Cho S

• KMID: 2502325
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.14316/pmp.2020.31.1.1

Abstract

Hadron therapy, such as carbon and helium ions, is increasingly coming to the fore for the treatment of cancers. Such hadron therapy has several advantages over conventional radiotherapy using photons and electrons physically and clinically. These advantages are due to the different physical and biological characteristics of heavy ions including high linear energy transfer and Bragg peak, which lead to the reduced exit dose, lower normal tissue complication probability and the increased relative biological effectiveness (RBE). Despite the promising prospects on the carbon ion radiation therapy, it is in dispute with which bio-mathematical models to calculate the carbon ion RBE. The two most widely used models are local effect model and microdosimetric kinetic model, which are actively utilized in Europe and Japan respectively. Such selection on the RBE model is a crucial issue in that the dose prescription for planning differs according to the models. In this study, we aim to (i) introduce the concept of RBE, (ii) clarify the determinants of RBE, and (iii) compare the existing RBE models for carbon ion therapy.

Keyword

Carbon ion radiotherapy; Relative biological effectiveness; Local effect model; Microdosimetric kinetic model

Figure

• 

  Fig. 1 Schematic illustration of the cell survival curve based on the LQ model (2). The Survival fraction is in log scale. The photons and carbon ions are considered to be isoeffective when the survival fractions are identical. The ratio of isoeffective photon and ion dose is determined to be RBE. For instance, fixing the survival fraction to 10%, carbon ion RBE is 2.82 whereas fixing to 1%, respective RBE is 2.25. RBE, relative biological effectiveness; LQ, Linear Quadratic.

• 

  Fig. 2 Illustration of the track structure of photons and carbon ions. (a) Photon track structure within a part of cell nucleus divided into smaller subvolumes. The local dose is identical along the radial direction, denoted as a red straight line. (b) Carbon ion track structure indicates amorphous shape along the radial direction. (c) A scale bar indicates high local dose when red and zero dose when white.

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