background : in spite of clinically useful photon and electron beams, high energy linacs produce secondary particles such as neutrons (photo-neutron production). neutrons have important roles during treatment with high energy photons in terms of protection and dose escalation. in this project, neutron dose equivalent of 18 mv varian accelerators is calculated by tld600 and tld700. materials and...

Objective: Treatment of a recalcitrant case of Kimura’s disease (KD) is described. Lesions recurred after injection of betamethasone, but responded well to radiation therapy using a Varian 21EX linear accelerator. A literature review and discussion of efficiency and safety issues is included. Method: A 53-year-old female with KD of the right cheek was treated with intramuscular injection of bet...

A formalism is developed for evaluating the shielding in an existing vault to be used for IMRT. Existing exposure rate measurements are utilized as well as a newly developed effective modulation scaling factor. Examples are given for vaults housing 6, 10 and 18 MV linear accelerators. The use of an 18 MV Siemens linear accelerator is evaluated for IMRT delivery with respect to neutron productio...

The complexity of VMAT delivery requires new methods and potentially new tools for the commissioning of these systems. It appears that great consideration is needed for quality assurance (QA) of these treatments since there are limited devices that are dedicated to the QA of rotational delivery. In this present study, we have evaluated the consistency and reproducibility of one prostate and one...

For intensity-modulated radiation therapy, evaluation of the measured dose against the treatment planning calculated dose is essential in the context of patient-specific quality assurance. The complexity of volumetric arc radiotherapy delivery attributed to its dynamic and synchronization nature require new methods and potentially new tools for the quality assurance of such techniques. In the p...

We used the two available calculation algorithms of the Varian Eclipse 7.3 three-dimensional (3D) treatment planning system (TPS), the anisotropic analytic algorithm (AAA) and pencil-beam convolution (PBC), to compare measured and calculated two-dimensional enhanced dynamic wedge (2D EDW) dose distributions, plus implementation of the dynamic wedge into the TPS. Measurements were carried out fo...

We have simulated the head geometry of a Varian Clinac 2100C/2300C medical accelerator in a Monte Carlo calculation to produce photoneutrons and transport them through the head shielding into a typical therapy room (modeled by a test cell at Varian Associates). The fast neutron leakage fluence and energy spectra have been calculated at 7 positions around the linac head for typical beam operatio...

Dear Editor, A standard dataset for small field output factors was published by the Radiological Physics Center (RPC).(1) The data are to be used as part of the quality control in other radiotherapy departments. As part of commissioning a new linear accelerator, we performed a comparison of our data against the original RPC dataset and found relative large deviations. We, therefore, conducted a...

PURPOSE To evaluate the neutron and photon dose equivalent rate (H(n,D) and H(G)) at the outer maze entrance and the adjacent treatment console area after the installation of a Varian Clinac 23EX accelerator with a higher beam energy than its predecessor. The evaluation was based on measurements and comparison with several empirical calculations. The effectiveness of borated polyethylene (BPE) ...