The dose penumbra of a custom-made shield used in hemibody skin electron irradiation

Abstract

We report our technique for hemibody skin electron irradiation with a custom-made plywood shield. The technique is similar to our clinical total skin electron irradiation (TSEI), performed with a six-pair dual field (Stanford technique) at an extended source-to-skin distance (SSD) of 377 cm, with the addition of a plywood shield placed at 50 cm from the patient. The shield is made of three layers of standard 5/8'' thick plywood (total thickness of 4.75 cm) that are clamped securely on an adjustable-height stand. Gafchromic EBT3 films were used in assessing the shield's transmission factor and the extent of the dose penumbra region for two different shield-phantom gaps. The shield transmission factor was found to be about 10%. The width of the penumbra (80%-to-20% dose falloff) was measured to be 12 cm for a 50 cm shield-phantom gap, and reduced slightly to 10 cm for a 35 cm shield-phantom gap. In vivo dosimetry of a real case confirmed the expected shielded area dose.