Out-of-field dose measurements in radiotherapy – An overview of activity of EURADOS Working Group 9: Radiation protection in medicine
Abstract
This review of dosimetry for second cancer risk estimation introduces work carried out by Working Group 9 (WG9: Radiation Protection Dosimetry in Medicine) of the European Radiation Dosimetry Group (EURADOS). The work concentrates on the measurement of out-of-field doses in water phantoms using a variety of dosimeters to measure photon and neutron doses. These include optically stimulated luminescence (OSL), radiophotoluminescence (RPL) and thermoluminescence (TLD) dosimeters for photon dosimetry (together with ion chambers for reference measurements) and track etch and superheated emulsion detectors for neutron measurements. The motivation of WG 9 was to assess undue, non-target patient doses in radiotherapy and the related risks of second malignancy. Improvements in cancer treatment have increased survival times and thus increased incidence of second cancer may be expected in the future. In addition, increased whole body exposure may result from some developments in radiotherapy. This means that radiotherapy clinics will need to simulate their treatments in order to estimate and minimise doses to healthy tissues and organs. The proposed work is designed to generate a robust dataset of out-of-field dose measurements which can be used for the development and validation of dose algorithms.
Highlights:
• Photon dosimeters used (TLD, OSL and RPL) are suitable for out-of-field dosimetry.
• Superheated emulsions and Track etch PADC detectors were used for neutron dosimetry.
• Neutron detectors used are suitable for out-of-field neutron dosimetry.
• Peripheral doses for the same PTV can vary by a factor of 4 for various modalities.
• Results revealed that the TPS used regularly underestimated out-of-field doses
Keywords
Emission
Luminescence
Luminescence Dosemeters
Photon Emission
Radiation Dtectors
Radiology
Nuclear Medicine
Mockup
Medicine
Measuring Instruments
Tomotherapy
VMAT
IMRT
OSL
Superheated emulsion detectors
Track etch PADC detectors
TLD
RPL
Out-of-field doses in radiotherapy
Radiotherapy
Therapy
Structural Models
Tomography
CT-Guided Radiotherapy
Computerized Tomography
Emulsions
Neutron Detectors
Neutron Dosimetyry
Organs donation
Particle Tracks
Phantoms
Radiation Doses
Radiation Protection
Thermoluminescence
Thermoluminescent Dosemeters
Body
Colloids
Diagnostic Techniques
Dispersions
Dosemeters
Doses
Dosimetry