Patient Dose Computation (9.10)

• Published in: Comprehensive Biomedical Physics Vol. 9; pp. 235 - 247
• Main Author: Ahnesjö, A
• Format: Reference Book Chapter
• Language: English
• Published: 2014
• Subjects: Algorithms; Clinical trials; Diagnostic imaging; dose calculation; Dose-response relationship; Drug compounding; Goal setting; Ionizing radiation; Magnetic resonance imaging; Monte Carlo methods; Proton beams; Radiation dosimetry; Radiotherapy; Scattering (Physics); treatment planning
• ISBN: 9780444536327; 0444536329; 9780444536334; 0444536337
• DOI: 10.1016/B978-0-444-53632-7.00912-6

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.