Density scaling artifacts in dosimetry calculations.

Quality assurance dosimetry often requires the comparison of measured doses with those calculated by a treatment-planning system for phantoms of density other than 1.000 g/cm3. The presence of an artifact in the Pinnacle3 treatment-planning system can lead to systematic errors in such cases.

Virtual micro MLC commissioning.

The resolution of multileaf collimators (MLCs) is limited by their finite leaf width. A commercial package (HD-270) uses 3D couch translation and leaf adjustments to emulate smaller leaf widths. In this paper, we report on the commissioning of this feature using software testing, dial gauge measurements, and film dosimetry.

Prophylactic cranial irradiation revisited: cost-effectiveness and quality of life in small-cell lung cancer.

Purpose: To investigate the therapeutic usefulness and cost-effectiveness of prophylactic cranial irradiation (PCI) in patients with limited-stage small-cell lung cancer (SCLC) who had achieved a complete remission.

Methods: A retrospective chart review was undertaken of all patients diagnosed in Saskatchewan with SCLC between 1987 and 1998 inclusive. Patients who achieved a complete remission were divided into two groups, depending on whether they underwent PCI (PCI+ and PCI-, respectively).

Mapping dose distributions.

Clinical dose calculations are often performed by scaling distances from a dose distribution measured in one medium to calculate the dose in another. These perturbation calculations have the mathematical form of a mapping. In this paper we identify five conditions required for particle transport to reduce to this form and develop a new mapping for electrons which approximately satisfies these conditions.

Vrx: a verify-record system for radiotherapy.

A system of computer programs has been created to allow the entry of radiotherapy treatment details as defined by the physician, the verification of the machine parameters at every treatment, and the recording of the entire course of treatment. Various utility programs are available to simplify the use and maintenance of the system. The majority of the code is written in FORTRAN-77, the remainder in MACRO-11.