Dosimetry analysis of two new design 103 Pd interstitial brachytherapy sources

Abstract

With increased demand for low 103 Pd (palladium) seed sources, to treat prostate and eye cancers, new sources have been designed and introduced. This paper presents the two new palladium brachytherapy sources, IR03- 103 Pd and IR04- 103 Pd that have been developed at Agricultural, Medical & Industrial Research School . The dosimetric parameters, such as the dose rate constant Λ , the radial dose function g ( r ) and the anisotropy function F ( r , θ ), around the sources have been characterised using Version 5 Monte Carlo radiation transport code in accordance with the update AAPM Task Group No. 43 Report (TG-43U1). The results indicated the dose rate constant of 0.689 ± 0.02 and 0.667 ± 0.02 cGy h -1 U -1 for the IR03- 103 Pd and IR04- 103 Pd sources, respectively, which are in acceptable agreement with other commercial seeds. The calculated results were compared with published results for those of other source manufacturers. However, they show an acceptable dose distribution, using for clinical applications is pending experimental dosimetry.