Conceptual design of a personalized radiation therapy patch for skin cancer

Abstract

Radiation therapy is a valuable option for treatment of skin cancer. In order to deliver the radiation dose to the superficial skin tumor, an X-ray source, electron beam radiation therapy or a radioisotope is applied. The effectiveness of these procedures is well established in the literature. Findings of some recent studies have indicated that beta particles can be of particular interest in suppressing skin tumor growth. Betaemitting radioisotopes are favorable because of the short penetration depth of their emitted particles. Beta radiation can induce significant damage in superficial skin tumor, and at the same time, result in enhanced protection of the underlying healthy tissues. In this study, we propose the design of a patch that can be used in beta radiation therapy of skin cancer patients. For that, we describe the components of this radioactive patch, as well as a proposal for the subsequent clinical application procedure. A scaffold was used as a substrate for embedding the desired beta-emitting radioisotope, and two layers of hydrogel to provide protection and shielding for the radioactively labelled scaffold. The proposed design could provide a universal platform for all beta-emitting radioisotopes. Depending on the depth of the tumor spread, a suitable beta emitter for that specific tumor can be selected and used. This is of particular and critical importance in cases where the tumor is located directly on top of the bone and for which the depth of penetration of radiation should be limited to only the tumor volume. The proposed design has the mechanical flexibility to adapt to curved body regions so as to allow the use in anatomically challenging areas of the body.

Keywords

• superficial radiation therapy
• beta particles
• radioactive scaffold
• radioactive patch
• planar beta radiation source
• skin cancer