Effect of different cell cluster models on the radiobiological output for (211)At-radioimmunotherapy

The cell cluster modeling is a widely used method to estimate the small-scale dosimetry and provides the implication for a clinic. This work evaluated the effect of different regular cluster models on the radiobiological outputs for (211)At-radioimmunotherapy. The cell activity threshold was estimated using a tumor control probability of 0.90. Basically, regular models show similar features with cluster configuration and cell dimension variation. However, their individual results such as the cumulated activity threshold per cell and the prescription dose per volume should not be substituted reciprocally. The tissue composed of smaller cells or midcell packing will need a little more high prescription dose per volume. The radiation sensitivity parameters in a linear-quadratic model are critical to decide the radiobiological response with dose. The cumulated cell activity threshold increases exponentially with α decreasing, and its influence on the big cell dimension is more than on the small one. The different subsources affect radioresistant organs or tissues more remarkably than radiosensitive ones, especially the cells with large cytoplasm. The heterogeneous activity of Gaussian distribution will decrease the therapeutical effectiveness for the nucleus source, but its influence on the cytoplasm and cell surface sources is a little uncertain, as their real mean value is always higher than its set mean value by assuming the cell activity uptakes from zero. Careful usage of underdose with heterogeneous activity distribution should be practiced in clinics. The deteriorated heterogeneous distribution will salvage the potential subversive and lead to the failure of tumor local control. Some cells with no or little activity that are located on the edge or vertex of cube or corner models will have the ability to survive, as there is a lack of a part of the cross-fire dose effect, and so more attention should be paid in selecting the dosage. Although this work focuses on the clinic implication of (211)At in α-radioimmunotherapy, these cell cluster models can be generalized to other radionuclides.