Peripheral neutron dose estimation: Comparison between experimental measurements and TPS estimation

Abstract

A newly TPS algorithm, implemented in Pinnacle3, has been developed for peripheral neutron dose estimation for radiotherapy patients. The script gives doses in several organs according to gender, treatment location and delivered high energy monitor units. In order to validate these estimations, doses for a total of 119 patients were calculated with Pinnacle3 TPS script, and compared to the experimental measurements with the new Thermal Neutron Digital Detector (TNRD). The studied patients, cover a wide range of pathologies for three different linacs. The comparison shows that with the implemented script we obtain a good correlation between measurement and theoretical values. On the other hand, periodic neutron characterization of the facility should be considered for better estimations.