Abstract
Lead shielding in contact with the patient's skin is often encountered inradiotherapy with electron beams. The influence of the lead shielding on dosedistributions in the patient cannot fully be assessed using modern treatmentplanning systems. In this work the problem of quantifying the effect of leadshielding on dose distributions is addressed. Monte Carlo dose calculationswere performed in a half-blocked water phantom shielded by lead, using arealistic model for the fluence of an electron linear accelerator. Electronbeam energies of 6-20 MeV and lead thicknesses of 1-7 mm are used for10×10 cm2 and 5×5 cm2 fields. The perturbation of theparticle fluence and dose distributions in water introduced by the leadshielding is quantified. The effect of oblique electron beams on the doseperturbation is shown. A fictitious clinical example, the shielding of an eyein electron beam treatment, is used to demonstrate the usefulness of MonteCarlo based treatment planning algorithms that can incorporate the effects oflead shielding.
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