Current brachytherapy treatment planning systems are unable to accurately calculate dose distributions in the vicinity of brachytherapy sources having active lengths much greater than 5 mm. While low dose-rate ¹³⁷Cs sources are dosimetrically characterized using antiquated along-away tables with simple linear-linear interpolation errors in dose calculation exceeding 30% occur due to algorithm inadequacy. The method presented in this thesis permits dosimetric characterization of elongated brachytherapy sources with active lengths 0 < L < 10 cm for implementation on an FDA-approved clinical TPS. Low- and high-energy photon-emitting sources of Pd-103 and Ir-192, respectively, were examined.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:GATECH/oai:smartech.gatech.edu:1853/33923 |
| Date | 07 April 2010 |
| Creators | Bannon, Elizabeth |
| Publisher | Georgia Institute of Technology |
| Source Sets | Georgia Tech Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Archive |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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