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Created by: Louis Kunz

Issue 321: To best plan radiotherapy treatments, monte-carlo (MC) simulations are routinely used to tailor treatments to individuals but are mostly limited to the physical behaviour of particles. The biological reponse of healthy and tumor tissue, inherently more complex, is overlooked in the treatment plans. Due to the large structural and genetic variations between tumors, a complete simulation framework would however be highly relevant. In our work we present AMBER (Agent-based fraMework for radioBiological Effects in Radiotherapy) allowing to model tumor growth and radiation responses. AMBER is based on a voxelized geometry, enabling realistic simulations at relevant pre-clinical scales by tracking temporally discrete states stepwise. Its hybrid approach, combining traditional ABM techniques with continuous spatiotemporal fields of key microenvironmental factors such as oxygen and VEGF, facilitates the generation of realistic tortuous vascular trees shown in the image above. Moreover, AMBER is integrated with TOPAS, an MC-based particle transport algorithm that simulates heterogeneous radiation doses.