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Scaling neutron absorbed dose distributions from one medium to another
Author(s) -
Awschalom M.,
Rosenberg I.,
Ten Haken R. K.
Publication year - 1983
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 - 10.1118/1.595364
Subject(s) - imaging phantom , scaling , dosimetry , neutron , physics , computational physics , kerma , absorbed dose , materials science , nuclear medicine , optics , mathematics , nuclear physics , geometry , medicine
Central axis depth dose (CADD) and off‐axis absorbed dose ratio (OAR) measurements were made in water, muscle and whole skeletal bone tissue‐equivalent (TE) solutions, mineral oil, and glycerin with a clinical neutron therapy beam. These measurements show that, for a given neutron beam quality and field size, there is a universal CADD distribution at infinity if the depth in the phantom is expressed in terms of appropriate scaling lengths. These are essentially the kerma‐weighted neutron mean free paths in the media. The method used in ICRU Report No. 26 to scale the CADD by the ratio of the densities is shown to give incorrect results. The OARs measured in different media at depths proportional to the respective mean free paths were also found to be independent of the media to a good approximation. Therefore, neutron beam CADDs and OARs may be measured in either TE solution (USA practice) or water (European practice), and having determined the respective scaling lengths, all measurements may be scaled from one medium to any other. It is recommended that for general treatment planning purposes, scaling be made to TE muscle with a density of 1.04 g cm − 3 , since this value represents muscle and other soft tissues better than TE solution of density 1.07 g cm − 3 . For such a transformation, relative measurements made in water are found to require very small corrections. Hence, it is further recommended that relative CADD and OAR measurements be performed in water because of its universality and convenience. Finally, a table of calculated scaling lengths is given for various neutron energy spectra and for various tissues and materials of practical importance in neutron dosimetry.