Program Information

Determination of Dose Distributions and Water-Equivalence of MAGIC-F Polymer Gel for 60Co and 192Ir Brachytherapy Sources

A Quevedo

A Quevedo*, P Nicolucci , University of Sao Paulo, Ribeirao Preto, SP

Presentations

SU-E-T-102 Sunday 3:00PM - 6:00PM Room: Exhibit Hall

Purpose: Analyse the water-equivalence of MAGIC-f polymer gel for ⁶⁰Co and ¹⁹²Ir clinical brachytherapy sources, through dose distributions simulated with PENELOPE Monte Carlo code.

Methods: The real geometry of ⁶⁰Co (BEBIG, modelo Co0.A86) and ¹⁹²192Ir (Varian, model GammaMed Plus) clinical brachytherapy sources were modelled on PENELOPE Monte Carlo simulation code. The most probable emission lines of photons were used for both sources: 17 emission lines for ¹⁹²Ir and 12 lines for ⁶⁰Co. The dose distributions were obtained in a cubic water or gel homogeneous phantom (30 x 30 x 30 cm³), with the source positioned in the middle of the phantom. In all cases the number of simulation showers remained constant at 10⁹ particles. A specific material for gel was constructed in PENELOPE using weight fraction components of MAGIC-f: wH = 0,1062, wC = 0,0751, wN = 0,0139, wO = 0,8021, wS = 2,58x10⁻⁶ e wCu = 5,08 x 10⁻⁶. The voxel size in the dose distributions was 0.6 mm. Dose distribution maps on the longitudinal and radial direction through the centre of the source were used to analyse the water-equivalence of MAGIC-f.

Results:For the ⁶⁰Co source, the maximum diferences in relative doses obtained in the gel and water were 0,65% and 1,90%, for radial and longitudinal direction, respectively. For ¹⁹²Ir, the maximum difereces in relative doses were 0,30% and 1,05%, for radial and longitudinal direction, respectively. The materials equivalence can also be verified through the effective atomic number and density of each material: Zef-MAGIC-f = 7,07 e ρMAGIC-f = 1,060 g/cm³ and Zef-water = 7,22.

Conclusion: The results showed that MAGIC-f is water equivalent, consequently being suitable to simulate soft tissue, for Cobalt and Iridium energies. Hence, gel can be used as a dosimeter in clinical applications. Further investigation to its use in a clinical protocol is needed.


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