Computational and Mathematical Methods in Medicine
Volume 2012 (2012), Article ID 153212, 6 pages
http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2012/153212
Research Article

Microdosimetry for Targeted Alpha Therapy of Cancer

Chen-Yu Huang,1 Susanna Guatelli,2 Bradley M. Oborn,2,3 and Barry J. Allen4

1Centre for Experimental Radiation Oncology, St. George Clinical School, University of New South Wales, Kogarah, NSW 2217, Australia
2Illawarra Cancer Care Centre, Wollongong, NSW 2522, Australia
3Centre for Medical Radiation Physics, University of Wollongong, NSW 2522, Australia
4Ingham Institute of Applied Medical Research, Faculty of Medicine, University of Western Sydney, Liverpool, NSW 2170, Australia

Received 3 July 2012; Accepted 25 July 2012

Academic Editor: Eva Bezak

Copyright © 2012 Chen-Yu Huang et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

Targeted alpha therapy (TAT) has the advantage of delivering therapeutic doses to individual cancer cells while reducing the dose to normal tissues. TAT applications relate to hematologic malignancies and now extend to solid tumors. Results from several clinical trials have shown efficacy with limited toxicity. However, the dosimetry for the labeled alpha particle is challenging because of the heterogeneous antigen expression among cancer cells and the nature of short-range, high-LET alpha radiation. This paper demonstrates that it is inappropriate to investigate the therapeutic efficacy of TAT by macrodosimetry. The objective of this work is to review the microdosimetry of TAT as a function of the cell geometry, source-target configuration, cell sensitivity, and biological factors. A detailed knowledge of each of these parameters is required for accurate microdosimetric calculations.