Соотношение между поглощенной дозой, кермой и ионизационной кермой для полей малых размеров

Abstract

Purpose: Research of the relationships between spatial distributions in water of the main dosimetric values, namely the absorbed dose, kerma and ionization kerma, for small-size fields with a circular cross section created by divergent beams of bremsstrahlung spectrum with a maximum energy of 6 MeV.
 Material and methods: Using the Monte-Carlo method with the codes EGSnrc and MCNP4C2, calculations were carried out for these distributions in a water phantom for beam radii on the phantom surface from 0.1 to 3.0 cm and for depths up to 40 cm. The ratio at depths up to 5 cm, where there is a so-called build-up area, is studied in particular detail.
 Results: The results of calculations show that the ratio of ionization kerma to kerma for such beams at depths up to 40 cm is practically constant and equal to 0.9930 ± 0.0005. The ratio of the absorbed dose to the ionization kerma, in contrast to conventional square beams with a cross-sectional area  20 cm2, is much less than unity at radii of 1 cm at all the depths considered.
 Conclusion: The data obtained show that the relationship between absorbed dose, kerma and ionization kerma for photon fields produced by beams of small cross sections is very different from that for traditional beams. This circumstance should be taken into account when conducting dosimetry of small fields.