Development of advanced skin dose evaluation technique using a tetrahedral-mesh phantom in external beam radiotherapy: a Monte Carlo simulation study.

This study aims to develop a technique to evaluate accurate skin dose using the TM phantom in RT. The TM phantom was modeled with thin skin layers, including the epidermis, basal layer, and dermis from CT images. Using the Geant4 toolkit, the simulation was performed to evaluate the skin dose according to the radiation treatment conditions. The skin dose was evaluated at a surface depth of 50 μm and 2,000 μm. The difference in average skin dose between depths was up to 37%, depending on the thickness and region of the skin to be measured. The results indicate that the skin dose has been overestimated when the skin is evaluated using commercial TPS. Although it is not possible with traditional TPS, our skin dose evaluation technique can accurately predict the absorbed dose at thin skin layers from a patient-specific phantom. PMID: 31269480 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]
Source: Physics in Medicine and Biology - Category: Physics Authors: Tags: Phys Med Biol Source Type: research