2012 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

System Biology Model for Tumor Radiotherapy

Research Project

Project/Area Number	23656170
Research Category	Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Exploratory Research
Allocation Type	Multi-year Fund
Research Field	Intelligent mechanics/Mechanical systems
Research Institution	Hokkaido University
Principal Investigator	TADANO Shigeru 北海道大学, 大学院・工学研究院, 教授 (50175444)
Project Period (FY)	2011 – 2012
Keywords	バイオメカニクス / システムバイオロジー / 力学アナロジー / 放射線治療モデル / シミュレーション
Research Abstract	This study is to propose a computational simulation method to calculate therapeuticoutcomes in radiotherapy, and also applied a method of system biology. As a tumor shrinksdue to radiation exposure, it was possible to express the radiotherapeutic effects in terms oftumor volume changes and geometric distortion. The shrinking was assumed to expressmechanical analogy of solid body. The relationships between radiation energy and tumordeformation were estimated from solid mechanics equations. Finite element models oftumors were constructed based on computed tomography (CT) images. Some values ofparameters prescribing tumor radiosensitivity or growth rates of tumor cells wereidentified so that the calculated results fit the clinical results. Simulation results will showthat the simulation model can be applied to a variety of clinical cases by determining thetumor parameters appropriately.