Patient-Specific Dosimetry for Targeted Radionuclide Therapy Using Deformable Anthropomorphic Phantoms

Abstract

The administration of open radioactive sources to systemically target malignant cells has become a desirable treatment option for several types of cancer. However, patients receiving this form of radiation therapy often do not benefit from patient-specific treatment planning that is the gold standard in patient care for external beam therapy and brachytherapy. Therapeutic absorbed doses delivered by targeted radionuclide therapy can be predicted on an individual basis with activity quantification derived from a diagnostic tracer study. The aim of performing these calculations is to optimize the tumor dose-response while limiting toxicity to normal tissue. This thesis includes the creation of a novel method for individualized dosimetry using a patient-specific organ map generated from a deformable anthropomorphic phantom. Three-dimensional dose estimates are obtained using Monte Carlo particle transport based on the Geant4 simulation toolkit. The method was validated and applied to patient studies with planning times short enough to make this approach clinical viable.