Study on neutron radiation field of carbon ions therapy

TL;DR

This study uses the FLUKA code to evaluate neutron radiation fields in carbon ion therapy, showing secondary neutron doses are relatively low compared to primary carbon ion doses, which is important for radiation safety.

Contribution

It provides a detailed simulation of neutron spectra and dose in carbon ion therapy, confirming the safety level of secondary neutrons in treatment environments.

Findings

Neutron dose is less than 0.1% of carbon ion dose at Bragg peak.

Simulation results agree well with experimental data.

Secondary neutrons have limited impact on tissue dose.

Abstract

Carbon ions offer significant advantages for deep-seated local tumors therapy due to their physical and biological properties. Secondary particles, especially neutrons caused by heavy ion reactions should be carefully considered in treatment process and radiation protection. For radiation protection purposes, the FLUKA Code was used in order to evaluate the radiation field at deep tumor therapy room of HIRFL in this paper. The neutron energy spectra, neutron dose and energy deposition of carbon ion and neutron in tissue-like media was studied for bombardment of solid water target by 430MeV/u C ions. It is found that the calculated neutron dose have a good agreement with the experimental date, and the secondary neutron dose may not exceed one in a thousand of the carbon ions dose at Bragg peak area in tissue-like media.