The Radiation Enhancement of 15 nm Citrate-Capped Gold Nanoparticles Exposed to 70 keV/μm Carbon Ions

Radiotherapy is an important modality for tumor treatment. The central goal of radiotherapy is to deliver a therapeutic dose to the tumor as much as possible whilst sparing the surrounding normal tissues. On one hand, heavy ion radiation induces maximum damage at the end of the track (called the Bragg Peak). Hadron therapy based on heavy ions is considered superior to conventional X-rays and γ-rays radiations for tumors sited in sensitive tissues, childhood cases and radioresistant cancers. On the other hand, radiation sensitizers enhanced the radiation effects in tumors by increasing the dose specifically to the tumor cells. Recently, the use of gold nanoparticles as potential tumor selective radio-sensitizers has been proposed as a breakthrough in radiotherapy with conventional radiations. The enhanced radiation effect of heavy ions in tumor by using gold nanoparticles as radio-sensitizer may provide alternative in hadron therapy. In this study, we investigated the radiosensitizing effects of carbon ions with a linear energy transfer of 70 keV/μm in the presence of 15 nm citrate-capped AuNPs. The existing of AuNPs resulted in 5.5-fold enhancement in hydroxyl radical production and 24.5% increment in relative biological effectiveness (RBE) values for carbon-ion-irradiated HeLa cells. The study indicated gold nanoparticles can be used as potential radio-sensitizer in carbon ions therapy.