Broad beam transmission data for the shielding of brachytherapy facilities

A program for the independent verification of brachytherapy planning system calculations

Purpose: In this work a spreadsheet based program is presented that to a large extent independently verifies the calculations of individual plans of brachytherapy treatment planning systems for low dose rate, high dose rate and pulsed dose rate techniques.Material and methods: The verification program has been developed based on workbooks/spreadsheets. The treatment planning system output text files are automatically loaded into the new program, allowing the use of the source coordinates, the desired calculation point coordinates, and the dwell times of a patient plan. The source strength and the reference dates are entered by the user and then dose points calculations are independently per…

A dosimetric study on the Ir-192 high dose rate Flexisource

In this work, the dose rate distribution of a new Ir-192 high dose rate source (Flexisource used in the afterloading Flexitron system, Isodose Control, Veenendaal, The Netherlands) is studied by means of Monte Carlo techniques using the GEANT4 code. The dosimetric parameters of the Task Group No. 43 Report (TG43) formalism and two-dimensional rectangular look-up tables have been obtained.

Study of encapsulated T170m sources for their potential use in brachytherapy

Purpose: High dose-rate (HDR) brachytherapy is currently performed with {sup 192}Ir sources, and {sup 60}Co has returned recently into clinical use as a source for this kind of cancer treatment. Both radionuclides have mean photon energies high enough to require specific shielded treatment rooms. In recent years, {sup 169}Yb has been explored as an alternative for HDR-brachytherapy implants. Although it has mean photon energy lower than {sup 192}Ir, it still requires extensive shielding to deliver treatment. An alternative radionuclide for brachytherapy is {sup 170}Tm (Z=69) because it has three physical properties adequate for clinical practice: (a) 128.6 day half-life, (b) high specific a…

SU-FF-T-329: Monte Carlo Dosimetric Study of the Flexisource Ir-192 HDR Source

Purpose:Brachytherapy with high dose rate (HDR) sources of 192 Ir is a usual practice in clinical brachytherapy today. The TG43 U1 update report recommends that accurate dose distribution data of the brachytherapysource in use should be obtained experimentally or by Monte Carlo (MC), to be used as input in the HDR Treatment Planning System (TPS). The purpose of this study is to obtain the dose rate distribution in liquid water media for the Flexisource HDR 192 Ir source (Isodose Control GmbH, Germany) using the Monte Carlo method to obtain the TG43 U1 parameters and the 2‐D rectangular dose rate table. Material and methods: The MC code GEANT4 (7.1 version) was used to estimate dose rate in …

Review of clinical brachytherapy uncertainties: Analysis guidelines of GEC-ESTRO and the AAPM

Background and purpose: A substantial reduction of uncertainties in clinical brachytherapy should result in improved outcome in terms of increased local control and reduced side effects. Types of uncertainties have to be identified, grouped, and quantified. Methods: A detailed literature review was performed to identify uncertainty components and their relative importance to the combined overall uncertainty. Results: Very few components (e.g., source strength and afterloader timer) are independent of clinical disease site and location of administered dose. While the influence of medium on dose calculation can be substantial for low energy sources or non-deeply seated implants, the influence…

Broad-beam transmission data for new brachytherapy sources, Tm-170 and Yb-169

The characteristics of the radionuclides (170)Tm and (169)Yb are highly interesting for their use as high dose-rate brachytherapy sources. The introduction of brachytherapy equipment containing these sources will lead to smaller required thicknesses of the materials used in radiation protection barriers compared with the use of conventional sources such as (192)Ir and (137)Cs. The purpose of this study is to determine the required thicknesses of protection material for the design of the protecting walls. Using the Monte Carlo method, transmission data were derived for broad-beam geometries through lead and concrete barriers, from which the first half value layer and tenth value layer are ob…

Radiation transmission data for radionuclides and materials relevant to brachytherapy facility shielding

To address the limited availability of radiation shielding data for brachytherapy as well as some disparity in existing data, Monte Carlo simulation was used to generate radiation transmission data for 60Co, 137CS, 198Au, 192Ir 169Yb, 170Tm, 131Cs, 125I, and 103pd photons through concrete, stainless steel, lead, as well as lead glass and baryte concrete. Results accounting for the oblique incidence of radiation to the barrier, spectral variation with barrier thickness, and broad beam conditions in a realistic geometry are compared to corresponding data in the literature in terms of the half value layer (HVL) and tenth value layer (TVL) indices. It is also shown that radiation shielding calc…