The role of charged secondaries from nonelastic nuclear interactions by therapy proton beams in a PERSPEX target

The dose distribution delivered in charged particle therapy is due to both primary and secondary particles. The inclusion of the proton induced non-elastic nuclear reactions in the absorbed dose calculations carried out in proton-therapy, can modify the absorbed dose in two ways: by changing the energy spectrum as consequence of the primary proton fluence decreasing, and by giving rise to secondary products (i.e. p, n, α, d, t, 3He) which contribute to the absorbed energy, thus affecting the irradiated target, as well as critical organs outside the target volume, besides enhancing the biological dose due to the high LET values. In this preliminary work, the dose distributions from primary and secondary charged particles for a pencil beam of protons with energies between 100 and 200 MeV in a PERSPEX (PMMA, Polymethyl Methacrylate, Lucite or Plexiglass) target was studied theoretically in the continuous-slowing-down-approximation (CSDA) considering secondary particles energy spectra. In this sense, we have used a quite sophisticate multicollisional Monte Carlo code (MCMC) for pre-equilibrium emission, plus de-excitation of residual nucleus by fragmentation process. (author)