Dosimetry in steep dose-rate gradient radiationfields: A challenge in clinical applications

摘要

The fundamental goal of radiotherapy is to reduce the damage to normal tissue and optimize the dose to the tumor with an associated high probability of cure. Because of this, an accurate and precise knowledge of the radiation dose distribution delivered around the tumor volume during radiotherapy treatments such as stereotactic radiosurgery, intensity modulated radiotherapy or brachytherapy with low-energy X-ray and beta particle sources is of great importance. However, in each of these radiation fields, there exists a steep dose-rate gradient which makes it very difficult to perform accurate dose measurements. In this work, the physics phenomena involved in the energy absorption for each of these situations are discussed, and a brief revision of what the Medical Physics community is doing is presented.