Method for range calculation based on empirical models of proton in liquid water: Validation study using Monte-Carlo method and ICRU data

The biological damages are mainly produced by direct ionization and excitation of bio-molecular DNA electrons or by indirect chemical reaction of water radiolysis products with DNA. In this work, we restricted our study on the interaction of energetic ion proton beams with liquid water; since the water represents over 80% of the most-soft tissues. The proton collisions with water molecules are estimated from the ionization, excitation, and charge-changing processes. We studied the Bragg-Kleeman rule R = N × E ß , between the range (R) and the incident kinetic energy (E), in the range of 1 − 300 MeV. We also approximated the range-energy relationship from a fourth degree polynomial. The Bragg peak profile and position (range) were determined from an analytical approach. The obtained results were compared with the experimental data from ICRU and the calculated ones from Monte-Carlo method using GEANT4-DNA, SRIM and DOSIMEX toolkits. The results are in well agreement to be used a basis for a forwarded estimation of the Bragg peak in the biological material H2O + DNA.