ABSTRACT
Many other recent studies have also demonstrated similar GNP-mediated tumor dose enhancement/radiosensitization in vitro or in vivo using x-ray/gamma-ray sources (Foley et al. 2005; Butterworth et al. 2008; Zhang et al. 2008; Kong et al. 2008; Butterworth et al. 2010; Hainfeld et al. 2010; Chithrani et al. 2010; Jain et al. 2011), electron beams (Chang et al. 2008; Zheng et al. 2008), and proton beams (Kim et al. 2010; Polf et al. 2011). In order to properly account for this intriguing phenomenon, it is necessary to quantify the amount and spatial distribution of dose enhancement associated with a given irradiation scenario. In this chapter, therefore, an overview of various approaches for such quantication is presented, focusing on the current authors’ own work in particular. Although the current discussion is limited to GNP-mediated tumor dose enhancement due to photon irradiation, much of it could still be applicable to irradiation scenarios with charged particles (e.g., electrons and protons) capable of producing secondary electrons from GNPs.
