HetMS-MC: Un marco para la modelización de Monte Carlo multiescala heterogénea en medicina de radiación

Radiation medicine involves processes spanning many length scales and there is interest in modelling across scales to advance knowledge, particularly for prospective treatment approaches, e.g., gold nanoparticle-enhanced radiation therapy (GNPT). Previously, implementation of this type of multiscale modelling in radiation medicine has been problem-based, with little standardization and no established framework.

To introduce a framework for heterogeneous multiscale Monte Carlo (HetMS-MC) modelling in radiation medicine.

The presented framework includes considerations for the creation and analysis of HetMS-MC models, including model development, simulation setup, uncertainty analysis and quantification. The framework is demonstrated through two examples: (1) tumour model; (2) GNPT scenario. Both are implemented in EGSnrc and consist of a cm-scale tumour containing a region of interest comprised of 650 micron-scale cells in which specific energy is scored.

The tumour model demonstrates the need for multiscale modelling as the HetMS-MC model captures differences in specific energy distributions from varying input parameters such as cell arrangement and MC random number seed that are not seen in conventional MC simulations. The GNPT model highlights the importance of multi-scale bridging in the development of HetMS-MC models.

A general HetMS-MC framework is established and used to develop two models relevant to radiation medicine. This framework allows for efficient simulation of radiation physics processes across many length scales for arbitrary treatment modalities.