• Progress in Medical Physics
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.8-14
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• 2003

The spinal cord dose is the one of the limiting factor for the radiation treatment of the head ＆ neck or the thorax region. It is not an easy task to maintain the spinal cord dose below tolerance and to keep the clinically acceptable dose to the PTV in this region. To overcome this problem, the spinal cord partial block technique (PBT) with the dynamic Multi-Leaf Collimator (dMLC) has been developed. This technique is an extension of the conventional treatment planning. In the beginning the beam directions are selected as same as the conventional treatment planning to encompass the PTV, then the partial block are designed to shield the spinal cord. The plan comparisons between the conventional therapy plan and the PTB plan were performed to evaluate the validity of this technique. The mean dose and the dose volume histogram (DVH) were used as the plan comparison indices. A series of quality assurance (QA) was performed to guarantee the reliable treatment. The QA consisted of the film dosimetry for the verification of the dose distribution and the point measurements. The PBT plan generated better results than the conventional treatment plan and it was proved to be useful for the H＆N region.