Quick search Find article
Quick search
Find article

Optimal flattening filter shape of a surface brachytherapy applicator

Robert Jeraj1,2, Attila Sarvary2 and Tomas Kron3,4

Show affiliations


As an alternative to standard treatment of superficial lesions with surgery and/or superficial/orthovoltage x-ray irradiation, radioactive moulds can be used. However, close proximity of the source to the treatment region leads to significant dose inhomogeneities in the tissue. Analytical and fast numerical methods have been developed that can calculate a corresponding flattening filter that evens out the dose distribution at the surface. Monte Carlo transport calculations were used to enable accurate treatment of the transport through the geometry. It was found that the use of pre-calculated transport parameters like dependence of the attenuation coefficient and scattering with depth is required for fast calculation of the flattening filter shape. Only 1–2 iterations were needed for a successful convergence to the filter shape that flattens out the dose distribution at the surface to within 1%. The developed methods are very general and could be applied with some minor modifications to other problems, where shaping of the irradiation field is required.


PACS

87.53.Jw Therapeutic applications, including brachytherapy

87.56.ng Wedges and compensators

87.55.-x Treatment strategy

87.53.-j Effects of ionizing radiation on biological systems

87.55.K- Monte Carlo methods

Subjects

Medical physics

Dates

Issue 5 (7 March 2002)

Received 27 July 2001

Published 15 February 2002



Users also read

What's this?
This innovative new feature generates a list of articles 'also read' by other users based on them reading the original article. Article abstracts citations and references are all considered and weighted accordingly. We hope that this will help you find relevant papers for your research.

  1. A flattening filter for brachytherapy skin irradiation

View by subject




Export








Please login to access our web services, or create an account if you don't yet have one.

You must have cookies enabled in your web browser to be able to login.

Username
Password

Forgotten your password? Get a new one here.