Absorbed dose reference for LDR brachytherapy the LNE-LNHB approach

Abstract

Nowadays, air kerma is the standard dosimetric quantity for calibration of brachytherapy sources. The quantity of interest for treatment planning is however the absorbed dose to water which is actually derived from the air kerma. The LNE-LNHB, under the European project "Increasing cancer treatment efficacy using 3D Brachytherapy", is developing and investigating a method to directly estimate the absorbed dose to water of low dose rate brachytherapy sources. This paper presents the LNE-LNHB methodology to establish the primary standard of absorbed dose to water for low dose rate brachytherapy sources. © 2009 Springer-Verlag.