AIM The aim of this study is to quantify the influence of the photon energy spectrum of brachytherapy sources on task group No. 43 (TG-43) dosimetric parameters. BACKGROUND Different photon spectra are used for a specific radionuclide in Monte Carlo simulations of brachytherapy sources. MATERIALS AND METHODS MCNPX code was used to simulate 125I, 103Pd, 169Yb, and 192Ir brachytherapy sources...

PURPOSE To analyze the impact of heterogeneity-corrected dose calculation on dosimetric quality parameters in gynecological and breast brachytherapy using Acuros, a grid-based Boltzmann equation solver (GBBS), and to evaluate the shielding effects of different cervix brachytherapy applicators. MATERIAL AND METHODS Calculations with TG-43 and Acuros were based on computed tomography (CT) retro...

Introduction: Brachytherapy is one of the most common treatment modalities for gynecological cancer. The GZP6 brachytherapy system is one of the devices utilized in Iran. It has been considered particularly due to its low cost compared to other more complete and established systems. This system has some deficiencies including lack of a treatment planning software for non-predefined treatments, ...

Introduction: Long-term teletherapy program is not suitable for old and working patients and those living in areas where little access to primary health care is available. Accelerated partial breast irradiation (APBI) using high dose rate (HDR) brachytherapy is an appropriate alternative for these patients due to its limited number of fractions. The AccuBoost is a system for delivering APBI. Th...

PURPOSE To determine the in-air azimuthal anisotropy and in-water dose distribution for the 1 cm length of a new elongated (103)Pd brachytherapy source through both experimental measurements and Monte Carlo (MC) simulations. Measured and MC-calculated dose distributions were used to determine the American Association of Physicists in Medicine Task Group No. 43 (TG-43) dosimetry parameters for t...

AIM To evolve a fast dose verification method for high-dose-rate (HDR) brachytherapy treatment plans and to demonstrate its applicability in different clinical cases. MATERIALS AND METHODS We developed a software tool in VC++ for the Varisource HDR unit for HDR dosimetry plan verification using TG-43 parameters. HDR treatment dosimetry of a number clinical cases using Varisource was verified ...

Dosimetry of eye plaques for ocular tumors presents unique challenges in brachytherapy. The challenges in accurate dosimetry are in part related to the steep dose gradient in the tumor and critical structures that are within millimeters of radioactive sources. In most clinical applications, calculations of dose distributions around eye plaques assume a homogenous water medium and full scatter c...

PURPOSE Well-known defect of TG-43 based algorithms used in brachytherapy is a lack of information about interaction cross-sections, which are determined not only by electron density but also by atomic number. TG-186 recommendations with using of MBDCA (model-based dose calculation algorithm), accurate tissues segmentation, and the structure's elemental composition continue to create difficulti...

High-dose-rate (HDR) brachytherapy is a popular modality for treating cancers of the prostate, cervix, endometrium, breast, skin, bronchus, esophagus, and head and neck as well as soft-tissue sarcomas. Because of different source designs and licensing issues, there is a need for specific dosimetry dataset for each HDR source model. The main objective of the present work is to measure 2D relativ...

Theoretical and experimental dosimetric studies have been supplied useful information on the dependence of the brachytherapy source geometry and materials (1-5). Usually, Monte Carlo method is used to define dose distribution function, the radial dose variation, and the dose calculation close to the source in brachytherapy. Chen et al. (6). calculated the distribution of absorbed dose around co...