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Dose modeling in ultraviolet phototherapy
Author(s) -
Grimes David Robert,
Robbins Chris,
O'Hare Neil John
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
medical physics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.473
H-Index - 180
eISSN - 2473-4209
pISSN - 0094-2405
DOI - 10.1118/1.3484093
Subject(s) - medical physics , dosimetry , ultraviolet , medical imaging , computer science , medicine , optics , physics , nuclear medicine , radiology
Purpose: Ultraviolet phototherapy is widely used in the treatment of numerous skin conditions. This treatment is well established and largely beneficial to patients on both physical and psychological levels; however, overexposure to ultraviolet radiation (UVR) can have detrimental effects, such as erythemal responses and ocular damage in addition to the potentially carcinogenic nature of UVR. For these reasons, it is essential to control and quantify the radiation dose incident upon the patient to ensure that it is both biologically effective and has the minimal possible impact on the surrounding unaffected tissue. Methods: To date, there has been little work on dose modeling, and the output of artificial UVR sources is an area where research has been recommended. This work characterizes these sources by formalizing an approach from first principles and experimentally examining this model. Results: An implementation of a line source model is found to give impressive accuracy and quantifies the output radiation well. Conclusions: This method could potentially serve as a basis for a full computational dose model for quantifying patient dose.