background: megavoltage beams used in radiotherapy are contaminated with secondary electrons. different parts of linac head and air above patient act as a source of this contamination. this contamination can increase damage to skin and subcutaneous tissue during radiotherapy.  monte carlo simulation is an accurate method for dose calculation in medical dosimetry and has an important role in opt...

Monte Carlo simulation of linear accelerators (linacs) depends on the accurate geometrical description of the linac head. The geometry of the Varian TrueBeam linac is not available to researchers. Instead, the company distributes phase-space files of the flattening-filter-free (FFF) beams tallied at a plane located just upstream of the jaws. Yet, Monte Carlo simulations based on third-party tal...

Dose inhomogeneity in treatment planning can be compensated using physical wedges. Enhanced dynamic wedges (EDW) were introduced by Varian to overcome some of the shortcomings of physical wedges. The objectives of this study were to measure EDW output factors for 6 MV and 20 MV photon energies for a Varian 2300CD. Secondly, to review the literature in terms of published enhanced dynamic wedge o...

Background: During intensity modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) technique, theoretically, presence of flattening filter (FF) across the beamline of clinical linear accelerator (linac) is not essential to obtain uniform lateral profiles due to intensity modulation of photon beams by multileaf collimators (MLCs). The aim of this study was to investigate the dosimetrical properties of 18 MV photon...

Introduction: Neutron contamination is very harmful for the patients receiving radiation therapy due to the high relative biological effect of neutrons. Medical linear accelerators head are made up of materials with high atomic numbers, and High-energy photons interaction with heavy materials can produce neutron contamination. In this study, neutron equivalent dose, neutron spe...

BACKGROUND Megavoltage beams used in radiotherapy are contaminated with secondary electrons. Different parts of linac head and air above patient act as a source of this contamination. This contamination can increase damage to skin and subcutaneous tissue during radiotherapy. Monte Carlo simulation is an accurate method for dose calculation in medical dosimetry and has an important role in optim...

Introduction: During intensity modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) technique, theoretically, presence of flattening filter (FF) across the beamline of clinical linear accelerator (linac) is not essential to obtain uniform lateral profiles due to intensity modulation of photon beams by multileaf collimators (MLCs). The aim of this study was to investigate the dosimetrical propert...

Intensity-modulated radiotherapy (IMRT) for complex sites such as tumors of the head and neck requires a level of accuracy in dose calculation beyond that currently used for conformal treatment planning. Recent advances in treatment planning systems have aimed to improve the dose calculation accuracy by improving the modeling of machine characteristics such as interleaf leakage, tongue and groo...

This study investigates the feasibility and applicability of cone beam CT for a megavoltage therapeutic LINAC. A Rando head phantom was irradiated using the 15 MV beam of a Varian 2100C LINAC at MSKCC for gantry angles from -102° to 102° with a 2° increment. The projection image for each gantry angle was obtained using a Varian Mark II EPID. Reference images without phantom were also collected ...

Different types the spectrum of photons were studied; they were emitted from the flattening filter of a LINAC Varian 2100 C/D that operates at 15 MV. The simplified geometry of the LINAC head was calculated using the MCNPX code based on the studies of the materials of the flattening filter, namely, SST, W, Pb, Fe, Ta, Al, and Cu. These materials were replaced in the flattening filter to calcula...