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Cellular S values in spindle-shaped cells: a dosimetry study on more realistic cell geometries using Geant4-DNA Monte Carlo simulation toolkit

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Abstract

Objective

Cellular dosimetry plays a crucial role in radiobiology and evaluation of the relative merits of radiopharmaceuticals used for targeted radionuclide therapy. The present study aims to investigate the effects of various cell geometries on dosimetric characteristics of several Auger emitters distributed in different subcellular compartments using Monte Carlo simulation.

Methods

The Geant4-DNA extension of the Geant4 Monte Carlo simulation toolkit was employed to calculate the mean absorbed dose per unit cumulated activity (S value) for different subcellular distributions of several Auger electron-emitting theranostic radionuclides including 99mTc, 111In, 123I, 125I, and 201Tl. The simulations were carried out in various single-cell models of liquid water including spherical, ellipsoidal, spherical spindle, and ellipsoidal spindle cell models. The latter two models which are generalized from the first two models were inspired by the morphologies of spindle-shaped (fusiform) cells, and were developed to provide more realistic modeling of this common geometry observed in many healthy and cancerous cells.

Results

Evaluation of the S values calculated for the examined cell models reveals that the differences are small (less than 9%) for the cell ← cell, cell ← cell surface, and nucleus ← nucleus source–target combinations. However, moderate discrepancies are seen (up to 28%) when the nucleus is considered as the target, as well as the radioactivity is either internalized into the cytoplasm or bound to the cell membrane.

Conclusions

The findings of the present work suggest that the assumption of spherical cell geometry may provide reasonably accurate estimates of the cellular/nuclear dose for the considered Auger emitters, even for spindle-shaped cells. Of course, this approximation should be used with caution for the nucleus ← cytoplasm and nucleus ← cell surface configurations, since the S-value sensitivity to the cell geometry is somewhat significant in these cases.

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  1. Department of Physics, Faculty of Science, University of Guilan, Namjoo Avenue, P.O. Box 41635-1914, Rasht, Guilan, 4193833697, Iran

    Ramak Salim & Payvand Taherparvar

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Salim, R., Taherparvar, P. Cellular S values in spindle-shaped cells: a dosimetry study on more realistic cell geometries using Geant4-DNA Monte Carlo simulation toolkit. Ann Nucl Med 34, 742–756 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12149-020-01498-z

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