Program Information
Backscatter Dose Factors Re-Evaluated for Inhomogeneities in the Presence of a 1.5 T Magnetic Field Using the GPUMCD Monte Carlo Algorithm
S Ahmad1*, A Sarfehnia1,2 , A Sahgal1,2 , B Keller1,2 , (1) Sunnybrook Odette Cancer Center, Toronto, Canada, (2) University of Toronto, Department of Radiation Oncology, Toronto, Canada
Presentations
TH-AB-BRA-3 (Thursday, August 4, 2016) 7:30 AM - 9:30 AM Room: Ballroom A
Purpose:
To quantify the backscatter dose factors near the interfaces for clinically relevant high atomic number materials using GPUMCD for the Elekta MRI Linac.
Methods:
Backscatter dose factors (BSDF) were calculated as the ratio of the dose with and without the presence of the heterogeneity. The BSDF’s were calculated either in the absence or presence of an orthogonal 1.5 T magnetic field. Doses were scored in small voxels of side 1 mm in a water phantom with dimensions of 20x20x20 cm using GPUMCD (Elekta). The minimum uncertainty in dose calculations was kept to 0.5%. A slab of thickness 2 cm, representing the inhomogeneity, was placed inside the phantom with variable position from the surface of the phantom. The slab was filled with either bone, aluminum, titanium, stainless steel, or dental amalgam. The phantom was irradiated using particles sampled from a histogram which represented the true MRI Linac spectrum.
Results:
With the application of the 1.5 T magnetic field (B-On), all of the BSDF’s were reduced by at least 8% compared to the no magnetic field (B-Off) cases. For the B-Off case, the BSDF decreases exponentially with the upstream distance away from the interface. With B-On, the BSDF decreases exponentially for titanium, SS, and amalgam. However, it remains constant for Aluminum. In the case of bone, the BSDF increases up to a distance of 4 mm away from the interface in the presence of the magnetic field.
Conclusion:
The BSDF does not depend upon the thickness of the homogeneous material above the inhomogeneity for either the B-Off or B-On cases. For all the materials investigated, the BSDF is lower at the interface for the B-On case. The exponential fall-off of the BSDF away from the interface is not valid for all the materials when the magnetic field is turned ON.
Funding Support, Disclosures, and Conflict of Interest: Funding support for this research was provided by Elekta
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