Mechanistic driven TCP and NTCP modeling for particle therapy accounting for a broad range of physical irradiation parameters and tissue environmental conditions

TL;DR

This paper develops a comprehensive mechanistic model for TCP and NTCP in particle therapy, accounting for physical irradiation parameters and tissue heterogeneity, to improve treatment planning and side effect prediction.

Contribution

It extends the GSM2 model to macroscopic tissue systems, incorporating spatial, temporal, and environmental heterogeneities for more accurate radiobiological modeling.

Findings

Model accounts for tissue heterogeneity and oxygen gradients.

Physical and environmental parameters influence side effect induction.

Biochemical heterogeneities impact tumor response predictions.

Abstract

In conventional radiotherapy, the probability of controlling tumor growth is quantified using Tumor Control Probability (TCP) models. Instead, the probability of experiencing a side effect after the irradiation of healthy tissues and organs is typically assessed using the concept of Normal Tissue Complication Probability (NTCP), an additional crucial metric for evaluating and comparing treatment plans. This work is dedicated to the development, implementation, and application of a general mechanistic model to describe the effects of particle therapy (PT) on different tissue organizations beyond Poissonian assumptions, extending the Generalized Stochastic Microdosimetric Model (GSM2), i.e., a stochastic radiobiological model that describes the time evolution of DNA lesions in a cell nucleus according to microdosimetric principles, to the study of macroscopic biological systems. Specifically, we extend the biological stage of radiation damage of the GSM2 model to larger spatial and temporal scales, involving cell populations with a specific geometric and functional architecture. The model's single-cell resolution allows it to account for energy deposition and tissue heterogeneity, considering different organ volume effects, cell type distributions, and oxygen gradients for different radiation qualities of the beam, that is, type, energy, and LET of radiation, and various fractionation schemes. We show the interplay between physical and environmental parameters on the induction of side effects on healthy tissues, for different radiation qualities and fractionation schemes, and we highlight the impact of biochemical heterogeneities in the target environment, for tumor response.