The Properties of Bolus Material using Silicone Rubber

Abstract

Bolus is a material equivalent to tissue and used in radiotherapy process to increase a dose surface using electron beam. The bolus synthesis from a material equivalent to tissue is not easy, one of the alternative materials used is silicone rubber (SR). In this research bolus was synthesized with dimension of length x width x thickness is (17 x 17 x 1) cm3. Bolus has been characterized by CT-Scan to find relative electron density (RED) and linear accelerator (LINAC) to investigate percentage of surface dose (PSD) with two energy (8 MeV and 10 MeV). The RED value for bolus is 1.176, these results show the RED value for bolus between soft tissue and solid tissue. The PSD value at 8 MeV and 10 MeV are 102.32% and 101.32%, respectively. These results indicate that the silicone rubber material can be used as an alternative bolus material because it corresponds to the bolus function in radiotherapy.