WE-G-218-02: The Measurement of Absorbed Dose to Active Intravenous Cardiac Devices in Patients Undergoing Radiotherapy

Medical Physics
C Reft

Abstract

Radiotherapy departments are seeing an increasing number of patients presenting for treatment with active intravenous cardiac devices (AICDs). This is due to an increasing aging population and technology advances in these devices. The AAPM TG-34 addressed the radiation effects in these devices and provided recommendations for patients with these devices undergoing radiotherapy. The current devices utilizing CMOS technology are more sensitive to radiation then the older bipolar devices. Therefore, it is important to estimate the dose to the device to ensure that the radiation does not adversely affect the performance of the device. This is particularly important for patients dependent on their accurate functioning. The dose to the device is generally from secondary radiation and is typically below 0.05 Gy with most of it coming from lower energy scatter radiation. Treatment planning systems can be used to estimate the dose to the device. However, these systems do not accurately calculate doses at distances more than 2-3 cm from the field edge. For these out-of-field dose measurements the dosimeter requires a high sensitivity and a relatively flat energy response. Thermoluminescent detectors and optically stimulated luminescent d...Continue Reading

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