9.10 - Patient Dose Computation

https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-444-53632-7.00912-6Get rights and content

Abstract

Various dose calculation methods have been proposed to serve the needs in treatment planning of radiotherapy. Common to these are that they need a patient model to describe the interaction properties of the irradiated tissues, and a sufficiently accurate description of the incident radiation. This chapter starts with a brief review of the contexts in which patient dose calculations may serve, followed by a description of common methods for patient modelling and beam characterization. The focus is on external beam photon, but also partly covers particle beams like electrons and protons. The last section describes common approaches of varying complexity for dose calculations ranging from simple factor based models, more elaborate pencil and point kernel models, and finally summarizes some aspects of Monte Carlo and grid based methods.

References (0)

Cited by (0)

Anders Ahnesjö studied engineering physics at Uppsala University, Sweden, and then combined enrollment in the treatment planning software industry with academic engagement. He obtained a doctorate in medical physics in 1991 under the supervision of professor Brahme at Karolinska at Stockholm University on a thesis of photon dose calculation algorithms, later implemented into several treatment planning systems. He has held various research positions in industry and became adjunct professor at Umeå University in 2003, and at Uppsala University in 2005 where he from 2012, is a full professor in medical radiation physics. His research interest has been in treatment planning algorithms where he has developed kernel based models for external beam photons and brachytherapy sources, multisource beam models for photon, electron and proton beams, and also quality assurance applications. More lately he has worked with other aspects of dosimetry including response modelling of semiconductor detectors, microdosimetry of low energy photons and proton and light ion. He is now continuing these interests and also pursuing research into patient positioning and imaging applications in radiotherapy.

View full text