Investigating in-field and out-of-field neutron contamination in high-energy medical linear accelerators based on the treatment factors of field size, depth, beam modifiers, and beam type

Abstract

PurposeWe analysed the effects of field size, depth, beam modifier and beam type on the amount of in-field and out-of-field neutron contamination for medical linear accelerators (linacs). MethodsMeasurements were carried out for three high-energy medical linacs of Elekta Synergy Platform, Varian Clinac DHX High Performance and Philips SL25 using bubble detectors. The photo-neutron measurements were taken in the first two linacs with 18 MV nominal energy, whereas the electro-neutrons were measured in the three linacs with 9 MeV, 10 MeV, 15 MeV and 18 MeV. ResultsThe central neutron doses increased with larger field sizes as a dramatic drop off was observed in peripheral areas. Comparing with the jaws-shaped open-field of 10 × 10 cm, the motorised and physical wedges contributed to neutron contamination at central axis by 60% and 18%, respectively. The similar dose increment was observed in MLC-shaped fields. The contributions of MLCs were in the range of 55–59% and 19–22% in Elekta and Varian linacs comparing with 10 × 10 and 20 × 20 cm open fields shaped by the jaws, respectively. The neutron doses at shallow depths were found to be higher than the doses found at deeper regions. The electro-neutron dose at the 18 MeV energy was higher than the doses at the electron energies of 15 MeV and 9 MeV by a factor of 3 and 50, respectively. ConclusionThe photo- and electro-neutron dose should be taken into consideration in the radiation treatment with high photon and electron energies.