Enhanced X-ray absorption by using gold nanoparticles in a biological tissue

In recent years, application of nanoparticles (NPs) in diagnosis and treatment of cancer has been the issue of extensive research. In this study, we investigated the effect of gold nanoparticles (GNPs) in a tumor during X-ray therapy. Our simulation, based on the Monte Carlo method, shows that the GNPs injected into a tumor considerably enhanced the absorbed dose during X-ray therapy, especially in the energy range between 10 keV and 150 keV. This increase in the absorbed dose is due to a combination of increased photoelectric interaction and Auger electron generation from the gold atoms. Furthermore, the absorbed dose in a biological cell is strongly influenced by the size of the GNPs; our results show that the ideal diameter of GNPs should be around 50 nm, and this result was confirmed by several authors. (authors)