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Published on: February 6, 2019
Dependence of simulated positron emitter yields in ion beam cancer therapy on modeling nuclear fragmentation
Armin Lühr1, Marlen Priegnitz, Fine Fiedler
1Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Aarhus, Aarhus, Denmark; Department of Experimental Clinical Oncology, Aarhus University Hospital, Aarhus, Denmark; OncoRay-National Center for Radiation Research in Oncology, Technical University Dresden, Dresden, Germany.
Abstract:
In ion beam cancer therapy, range verification in patients using positron emission tomography (PET) requires the comparison of measured with simulated positron emitter yields. We found that (1) changes in modeling nuclear interactions strongly affected the positron emitter yields and that (2) Monte Carlo simulations with SHIELD-HIT10Areasonably matched the most abundant PET isotopes (11)C and (15)O. We observed an ion-energy (i.e., depth) dependence of the agreement between SHIELD-HIT10Aand measurement. Improved modeling requires more accurate measurements of cross-section values.
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