Development of the DICOM-based Monte Carlo dose reconstruction system for a retrospective study on the secondary cancer risk in carbon ion radiotherapy

Furuta, Takuya; Koba, Yusuke*; Hashimoto, Shintaro; Chang, W.*; Yonai, Shunsuke*; Matsumoto, Shinnosuke*; Ishikawa, Akihisa*; Sato, Tatsuhiko

Physics in Medicine & Biology, 67(14), p.145002_1 - 145002_15, 2022/07

https://doi.org/10.1088/1361-6560/ac7998

Carbon ion radiotherapy has an advantage over conventional radiotherapy such that its superior dose concentration on the tumor helps to reduce unwanted dose to surrounding normal tissues. Nevertheless, a little dose to normal tissues, which is a potential risk of secondary cancer, is still unavoidable. The Monte Carlo simulation is a good candidate for the tool to assess secondary cancer risk, including the contributions of secondary particles produced by nuclear reactions. We therefore developed a new dose reconstruction system implementing PHITS as the engine. In this system, the PHITS input is automatically created from the DICOM data sets recorded in the treatment planning. The developed system was validated by comparing to experimental dose distribution in water and treatment plan on an anthropomorphic phantom. This system will be used for retrospective studies using the patient data in National Institute for Quantum and Science and Technology.

Technical Note: Validation of a material assignment method for a retrospective study of carbon-ion radiotherapy using Monte Carlo simulation

Chang, W.*; Koba, Yusuke*; Furuta, Takuya; Yonai, Shunsuke*; Hashimoto, Shintaro; Matsumoto, Shinnosuke*; Sato, Tatsuhiko

Journal of Radiation Research (Internet), 62(5), p.846 - 855, 2021/09

https://doi.org/10.1093/jrr/rrab028

With the aim of developing a revaluation tool of treatment plan in carbon-ion radiotherapy using Monte Carlo (MC) simulation, we propose two methods; one is dedicated to identify realistic-tissue materials from a CT image with satisfying the well-calibrated relationship between CT numbers and stopping power ratio (SPR) provided by TPS, and the other is to estimate dose to water considering the particle- and energy-dependent SPR between realistic tissue materials and water. We validated these proposed methods by computing depth dose distribution in homogeneous and heterogeneous phantoms composed of human tissue materials and water irradiated by a 400 MeV/u carbon beam with 8 cm SOBP using a MC simulation code PHITS and comparing with results of conventional treatment planning system (TPS). Our result suggested that use of water as a surrogate of real tissue materials, which is adopted in conventional TPS, is inadequate for dose estimation from secondary particles because their production rates cannot be scaled by SPR of the primary particle in water. We therefore concluded that the proposed methods can play important roles in the reevaluation of the treatment plans in carbon-ion radiotherapy.

Role of advection in atmospheric ammonia; A Case study at a Japanese lake basin influenced by agricultural ammonia sources

Kubota, Tomohiro; Kuroda, Hisao*; Watanabe, Mirai*; Takahashi, Akiko*; Nakazato, Ryoji*; Tarui, Mika*; Matsumoto, Shunichi*; Nakagawa, Keita*; Numata, Yasuko*; Ouchi, Takao*; et al.

Atmospheric Environment, 243, p.117856_1 - 117856_9, 2020/12

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.atmosenv.2020.117856

The dry and wet depositions of atmospheric ammonia (NH) is one of the important pathways of nitrogen loads to aquatic ecosystems. Crop and livestock agriculture, one of the largest emitters of NH in Asian countries, are known to cause high spatial and seasonal variation of NH and influence the surrounding lake basin areas via its dry and wet deposition. However, the spatial characteristics of the NH concentration in basin scale are not completely understood for regulation in NH emission. Here we aim to clarify dominant factors of spatial and seasonal variations of the NH concentration in a eutrophic lake basin surrounded by agricultural areas in Japan. Passive sampling over various land use categories in the basin was conducted at 36 sites in total from October 2018 to January 2020. Interestingly, the observed NH concentration near the livestock houses were higher in winter than summer, which was inconsistent with knowledge of seasonal changes of current NH emission inventory based on temperature-driven volatilization process. Comparing monthly NH concentrations with various meteorological factors, we suggested the importance of seasonal advection of NH from high emission sources to which has been rarely paid attention by the previous past studies. As for this, should be considered for lake ecosystem management since deposition of NH is known to be closely related to the ecological processes such as phytoplankton blooming.

Development of a stochastic biokinetic method and its application to internal dose estimation for insoluble cesium-bearing particles

Manabe, Kentaro; Matsumoto, Masaki*

Journal of Nuclear Science and Technology, 56(1), p.78 - 86, 2019/01

https://doi.org/10.1080/00223131.2018.1523756

If an insoluble cesium-bearing particle is incorporated into the human body, the radioactivity will move as a single particle. In this case, it is impossible to estimate the number of disintegrations by considering the average behavior of countless nuclei. Then, a method was developed to simulate the behavior of the particle stochastically; and a biokinetic model was constructed to consider the characteristics of insoluble particles. Combination of the method and the model enables to estimate the number of disintegrations, and consequently the internal doses considering the stochastic behavior of the single cesium particle. We evaluated a probability density function of committed equivalent and effective doses and its 99th percentile value and arithmetic mean by repeating the above described procedure, and compared them to the reference values based on the existing models. As a result, the 99th percentile value of committed effective doses was 70 times the reference value when the number of incorporated particles was one, and consequently the dose level was quite low. When the exposure level is 1 mSv in committed effective dose, the uncertainty originating in the insolubility of cesium particles was negligibly small.

X-ray absorption spectroscopy in the heavy Fermion compound -YbAlB at high magnetic fields

Terashima, Taku*; Matsuda, Yasuhiro*; Kuga, Kentaro*; Suzuki, Shintaro*; Matsumoto, Yosuke*; Nakatsuji, Satoru*; Kondo, Akihiro*; Kindo, Koichi*; Kawamura, Naomi*; Mizumaki, Masaichiro*; et al.

Journal of the Physical Society of Japan, 84(11), p.114715_1 - 114715_4, 2015/11

https://doi.org/10.7566/JPSJ.84.114715

A Beam position fiber counter with scintillation fibers and multi-pixel photon counter for high intensity beam operation

Honda, Ryotaro*; Miwa, Koji*; Matsumoto, Yuki*; Chiga, Nobuyuki*; Hasegawa, Shoichi; Imai, Kenichi

Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research A, 787, p.157 - 160, 2015/07

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nima.2014.11.084

A beam position fiber counter consisting of the scintillation fiber and a multi-pixel photon counter was developed in order to handle a 10 MHz secondary pion beam in the J-PARC E40 experiment. This counter was installed at the entrance of the beam line spectrometer at the K1.8 experimental area in J-PARC and used for the momentum reconstruction. In order to suppress the accidental background and reconstruct the beam momentum, a good timing resolution better than 0.8 ns and a good position resolution better than 200 m were simultaneously required for the counter. These requirements were well achieved by reading the 320 fibers with a diameter of 1 mm, which were arranged in a staggered position, with MPPC fiber by fiber. The signal induced from each MPPC was handled with an Extended Analogue SiPM Integrated ReadOut Chip (EASIROC) developed by Omega/IN2P3 in France. In addition, the timing of the discriminated signals from EASIROC was measured by a FPGA-based multi-hit TDC implemented into Spartan-6. Finally, we obtained the timing resolution of 0.68 ns and the position resolution of 190 m under the 9 MHz beam condition using a pion beam.

Structure of a highly acidic -lactamase from the moderate halophile sp.560 and the discovery of a Cs-selective binding site

Arai, Shigeki; Yonezawa, Yasushi*; Okazaki, Nobuo*; Matsumoto, Fumiko*; Shibazaki, Chie; Shimizu, Rumi; Yamada, Mitsugu*; Adachi, Motoyasu; Tamada, Taro; Kawamoto, Masahide*; et al.

Acta Crystallographica Section D, 71(3), p.541 - 554, 2015/03

https://doi.org/10.1107/S1399004714027734

The crystal structure of halophilic -lactamase from sp.560 (HaBLA) was determined using X-ray crystallography. Moreover, the locations of bound Sr and Cs ions were identified by anomalous X-ray diffraction. The location of one Cs specific binding site was identified on HaBLA even in the presence of 9-fold molar excess of Na (90 mM Na /10 mM Cs). This Cs binding site is formed by two main-chain O atoms and an aromatic ring of a side chain of Trp. An aromatic ring of Trp interacts with Cs by the cation- interaction. The observation of a selective and high-affinity Cs binding site provides important information that is useful for designing artificial Cs binding sites useful in bioremediation of radioactive isotopes.

Structural characteristics of alkaline phosphatase from the moderately halophilic bacterium sp.593

Arai, Shigeki; Yonezawa, Yasushi*; Ishibashi, Matsujiro*; Matsumoto, Fumiko*; Adachi, Motoyasu; Tamada, Taro; Tokunaga, Hiroko*; Blaber, M.; Tokunaga, Masao*; Kuroki, Ryota

Acta Crystallographica Section D, 70(3), p.811 - 820, 2014/03

https://doi.org/10.1107/S1399004713033609

In order to clarify the structural basis of halophilic characteristics of an alkaline phosphatase derived from the moderate halophile sp.593 (HaAP), the tertiary structure of HaAP was determined to 2.1 resolution by X-ray crystallography. Structural properties of surface negative charge and core hydrophobicity are shown to be intermediate between halophile and non-halophile characteristics, and may explain the unique functional adaptation to a wide-range of salt concentration.

Development of a tracking detector system with multichannel scintillation fibers and PPD

Honda, Ryotaro; Callier, S.*; Hasegawa, Shoichi; Ieiri, Masaharu*; Matsumoto, Yuki*; Miwa, Koji*; Nakamura, Isamu*; Raux, L.*; De La Taille, C.*; Tanaka, Manobu*; et al.

Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research A, 695, p.206 - 209, 2012/12

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nima.2011.10.005

For the J-PARC E40 experiment which aims to measure differential cross-sections of Sp scatterings, a system to detect scattered proton from Sp scatterings is under development. The detection system consists of scintillation fibers with a MPPC readout. A prototype and a readout electronics for MPPC have already been developed. The prototype consisting of a scintillation fiber tracker and a BGO calorimeter was tested with a proton beam of 80 MeV. Energy resolutions of the tracker of 22.0% (s) and the calorimeter of 1.0% (s) were obtained for 1 MeV and 70 MeV energy deposit, respectively. The prototype readout electronics has an ASIC for multichannel operation, EASIROC, and a Silicon TCP (SiTCP) interface to communicate with a DAQ system. Its data transfer rate measured was 14 kHz. Required performances for the prototype system have been achieved except for the energy resolution of the prototype fiber tracker.

Status of breakup reaction theory

Ogata, Kazuyuki*; Matsumoto, Takuma*; Hashimoto, Shintaro; Minomo, Kosho*; Egami, Tomoaki*; Iseri, Yasunori*; Kono, Michio*; Chiba, Satoshi; Bertulani, C. A.*; Shimizu, Yoshifumi*; et al.

Journal of Physics; Conference Series, 312, p.082008_1 - 082008_10, 2011/09

https://doi.org/10.1088/1742-6596/312/8/082008

Recent studies on breakup reactions with the continuum-discretized coupled channels method are reviewed. The topics covered are: four-body breakup processes for He induced reaction, dynamical relativistic effects on coulomb breakup, microscopic description of projectile breakup processes, description of ternary processes (new triple- reaction rate) and new approach to inclusive breakup processes.