TY - JOUR
T1 - Development of advanced skin dose evaluation technique using a tetrahedral-mesh phantom in external beam radiotherapy
T2 - A Monte Carlo simulation study
AU - Cheon, Bo Wi
AU - Yoo, Do Hyeon
AU - Shin, Wook Geun
AU - Choi, Hyun Joon
AU - Park, Hyo Jun
AU - Kim, Jung In
AU - Min, Chul Hee
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 Institute of Physics and Engineering in Medicine.
Copyright:
Copyright 2019 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2019/8/14
Y1 - 2019/8/14
N2 - Incorrect prediction of skin dose in external beam radiotherapy (EBR) can have normal tissue complication such as acute skin desquamation and skin necrosis. The absorbed dose of skin should be evaluated within basal layer, placed between the epidermis and dermis layers. However, current treatment planning systems (TPS) cannot correctly define the skin layer because of the limitation of voxel resolution in computed tomography (CT). Recently, a new tetrahedral-mesh (TM) phantom was developed to evaluate radiation dose realistically. This study aims to develop a technique to evaluate realistic skin dose using the TM phantom in EBR. The TM phantom was modeled with thin skin layers, including the epidermis, basal layer, and dermis from CT images. Using the Geant4 toolkit, the simulation was performed to evaluate the skin dose according to the radiation treatment conditions. The skin dose was evaluated at a surface depth of 50 µm and 2000 µm. The difference in average skin dose between depths was up to 37%, depending on the thickness and region of the skin to be measured. The results indicate that the skin dose has been overestimated when the skin is evaluated using commercial TPS. Although it is not possible with traditional TPS, our skin dose evaluation technique can realistically express the absorbed dose at thin skin layers from a patient-specific phantom.
AB - Incorrect prediction of skin dose in external beam radiotherapy (EBR) can have normal tissue complication such as acute skin desquamation and skin necrosis. The absorbed dose of skin should be evaluated within basal layer, placed between the epidermis and dermis layers. However, current treatment planning systems (TPS) cannot correctly define the skin layer because of the limitation of voxel resolution in computed tomography (CT). Recently, a new tetrahedral-mesh (TM) phantom was developed to evaluate radiation dose realistically. This study aims to develop a technique to evaluate realistic skin dose using the TM phantom in EBR. The TM phantom was modeled with thin skin layers, including the epidermis, basal layer, and dermis from CT images. Using the Geant4 toolkit, the simulation was performed to evaluate the skin dose according to the radiation treatment conditions. The skin dose was evaluated at a surface depth of 50 µm and 2000 µm. The difference in average skin dose between depths was up to 37%, depending on the thickness and region of the skin to be measured. The results indicate that the skin dose has been overestimated when the skin is evaluated using commercial TPS. Although it is not possible with traditional TPS, our skin dose evaluation technique can realistically express the absorbed dose at thin skin layers from a patient-specific phantom.
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U2 - 10.1088/1361-6560/ab2ef5
DO - 10.1088/1361-6560/ab2ef5
M3 - Article
C2 - 31269480
AN - SCOPUS:85071350784
VL - 64
JO - Physics in Medicine and Biology
JF - Physics in Medicine and Biology
SN - 0031-9155
IS - 16
M1 - 165005
ER -