Fred Monte Carlo and Radiobiology

Antoni Rucinski is heading the Foundation of Polish Science project titled: Quantification of biological range uncertainties towards an improved patient treatment in CCB Cracow proton beam therapy centre


The project is situated in the interdisciplinary research field of medical physics and it will quantify biological uncertainties in proton beam therapy (PBT).

We are currently performing treatment planning studies to quantify the biological range uncertainties exploring various biological models with  variable relative biological effectiveness (RBE) and clinical data of patients treated in Kraków using Monte Carlo simulations.

An example of a selected Head and Neck (H&N) patient is presented in figures below, where the radiobiological dose distributions computed with constant and variable RBE using FRED Monte Carlo code.

The software tools and procedures developed in this project will be integrated into the cancer patient treatment procedures in Cyclotron Center Bronowice (CCB) at the Institute of Nuclear Physics Polish Academy of Sciences (IFJ PAN) in Cracow providing additional information needed to improve and fully exploit the advantages of proton beams.