Auger Electron Therapy And Brachytherapy Tumor Treatment

Auger Electron Therapy (AET) is a binary approach for improving cancer radiotherapy. It involves the selective targeting of an atom to tumor cells using physiological pathway. The atom is then irradiated by a specific radiation that produces secondary radiation called Auger electrons. One of the problems associated with the clinical application of AET, is that the energy of the photons required for stimulating photoelectric absorption in most of the available high Z target atoms, is too low to achieve penetration through normal surrounding tissues to the depth of the tumor, when an external source is used. The solution is therefore the use of a brachytherapy technique. There are two other problems associated with the use of radiation as a cancer treatment. The first is the limitation on radiation dose to the normal tissue within the treatment volume. The second problem is the limitation imposed by the miniscule size of the critical target of the cell, namely the DNA (0.25% of the cell mass). The solution to the first problem can be achieved by using the brachytherapy technique. The second problem can be resolved by placing the radiation source in close position to the DNA. AET, as we apply it, provides the two solutions to the two problems. When a photon is absorbed by an electron in the K or L shell of an high Z atom, the electron is ejected from the atom, creating a vacancy in the shell. This vacancy is immediately filled with an electron from an upper shell. The energy difference between the two shells is sometimes emitted as an x-ray, however, frequently the energy is transferred to an outer shell electron that is emitted as an Auger electron. These electrons are emitted at energies of up to ∼30 keV and therefore have a very short range in the cell. They will deposit all their energy within 20-30 nm from the point of emission. i.e. all the energy is deposited in the DNA. In our work indium is used as the high Z atom