Estimating the Absorbed Dose in Spinal Cord After Radiotherapy of Cervical Esophageal Tumors (Dose measurement at 3D Plexiglas phantom)

Abstract

In radiotherapy there is a great need for accurate determination of the adsorbed dose of tumor tissue as well as to healthy organs at risk. The absorbed dose delivered to the planning target volume (PTV) should be ± %5 of the stated dose (Other authors suggest ± %3) [1,2]. To accomplish this goal, most treatments are executed according to a calculated plan. In clinical cases verification of the calculated dose plan by measurements is often complicated. This is especially true if the treatment comprises several beams of different fields and radiation qualities and if the beams impinge on an irregularly shaped body section containing various kinds of tissues or cavities. One method to verification treatments is to carry out measurements using thermo luminescence (TL) dosimeters in patient-like (soft tissue equivalent) phantoms [2,3]. The purpose of this study was to estimate the absorbed dose in the spinal cord and the esophagus by the TLD measurements in Plexiglas phantom.