• Journal of radiological science and technology
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.47-51
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• 1999

We calculated the energy distribution and the percentage depth-dose at 10 cm in a $10{\times}10\;cm^2$ with a photon beam at SSD of 100 cm by using a Monte Carlo Simulation. PDD is used as a beam-quality specifier for radiotherapy beams. It is better than the commonly used values of TPR or nominal accelerating potential. The presence of electron contamination affects the measurement of PDD, but can be removed by the use of a 0.1 cm lead filter. It reduces surface dose from contaminant electrons from the accelerator by more than 90% for radiotherapy beams. The filter performs best when it is placed immediately below the head. An electron-contamination correction factor is introduced to correct for electron contamination from the filter and air. It converts PDD which includes the electron contamination with the filter in place into PDD for the photons in the filtered beam. The correction factor can be used to determine stopping-power ratio. Calculations show that the values of water-to-air slopping power ratio in the unfiltered beam are related to PDD.

• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.1-10
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• 2002

High energy photon beams from medical linear accelerators produce large scattered radiation by various components of the treatment head, collimator and walls or objects in the treatment room including the patient. These scattered radiation do not provide therapeutic dose and are considered a hazard from the radiation safety perspective. Scattered dose of therapeutic high energy radiation beams are contributed significant unwanted dose to the patient. ICRP take the position that a dose of 500mGy may cause abortion at any stage of pregnancy and that radiation detriment to the fetus includes risk of mental retardation with a possible threshold in the dose response relationship around 100 mGy for the gestational period. The ICRP principle of as low as reasonably achievable (ALARA) was recommended for protection of occupation upon the linear no-threshold dose response hypothesis for cancer induction. We suggest this ALARA principle be applied to the fetus and testicle in therapeutic treatment. Radiation dose outside a photon treatment filed is mostly due to scattered photons. This scattered dose is a function of the distance from the beam edge, treatment geometry, primary photon energy, and depth in the patient. The need for effective shielding of the fetus and testicle is reinforced when young patients ate treated with external beam radiation therapy and then shielding designed to reduce the scattered photon dose to normal organs have to considered. Irradiation was performed in phantom using high energy photon beams produced by a Varian 2100C/D medical linear accelerator (Varian Oncology Systems, Palo Alto, CA) located at the Yonsei Cancer Center. The composite phantom used was comprised of a commercially available anthropomorphic Rando phantom (Phantom Laboratory Inc., Salem, YN) and a rectangular solid polystyrene phantom of dimensions $30cm{\times}30cm{\times}20cm$. the anthropomorphic Rando phantom represents an average man made from tissue equivalent materials that is transected into transverse 36 slices of 2.5cm thickness. Photon dose was measured using a Capintec PR-06C ionization chamber with Capintec 192 electrometer (Capintec Inc., Ramsey, NJ), TLD( VICTOREEN 5000. LiF) and film dosimetry V-Omat, Kodak). In case of fetus, the dosimeter was placed at a depth of loom in this phantom at 100cm source to axis distance and located centrally 15cm from the inferior edge of the $30cm{\times}30cm^2$ x-ray beam irradiating the Rando phantom chest wall. A acryl bridge of size $40cm{\times}40cm^2$ and a clear space of about 20 cm was fabricated and placed on top of the rectangular polystyrene phantom representing the abdomen of the patient. The leaf pot for testicle shielding was made as various shape, sizes, thickness and supporting stand. The scattered photon with and without shielding were measured at the representative position of the fetus and testicle. Measurement of radiation scattered dose outside fields and critical organs, like fetus position and testicle region, from chest or pelvic irradiation by large fie]d of high energy radiation beam was performed using an ionization chamber and film dosimetry. The scattered doses outside field were measured 5 - 10% of maximum doses in fields and exponentially decrease from field margins. The scattered photon dose received the fetus and testicle from thorax field irradiation was measured about 1 mGy/Gy of photon treatment dose. Shielding construction to reduce this scattered dose was investigated using lead sheet and blocks. Lead pot shield for testicle reduced the scatter dose under 10 mGy when photon beam of 60 Gy was irradiated in abdomen region. The scattered photon dose is reduced when the lead shield was used while the no significant reduction of scattered photon dose was observed and 2-3 mm lead sheets refuted the skin dose under 80% and almost electron contamination. The results indicate that it was possible to improve shielding to reduce scattered photon for fetus and testicle when a young patients were treated with a high energy photon beam.

• Progress in Medical Physics
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.55-62
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• 1999

In an effort to study the characteristics of x-rays utilized in radiation therapy, we calculated the energy distribution and the mean energy of x-rays generated from a tungsten target bombarded by 6, 10, and 15 MeV electron beams, using a Monte Carlo technique. The average photon energies calculated as a function of the beam radius lied in 1.4 ∼ 1.6, 2.1 ∼ 2.5 and 2.8 ∼ 3.3 MeV ranges for 4, 10, and 15 MV electron beams, respectively, which turned out to have no strong dependence on the radius. Using the energy distributions of 6,10, and 15 MV x-rays obtained for the target distance of 100 cm, percentage depth doses were determined using Monte Carlo calculations. For the case 10 MV, a comparison was made between our calculation and measurement performed by others. The calculated percentage depth dose appeared somewhat smaller than the measured one except in the surface region. We conclude that this is due to the fact that the beam hardening effect resulting from the flattening filter was not properly allowed for in our Monte Carlo calculations.

• Progress in Medical Physics
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.147-155
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• 2000

Patient dose verification is one of the most important parts in quality assurance of the treatment delivery for radiation therapy. The dose distributions may be meaningfully improved by modulating two dimensional intensity profile of the individual high energy radiation beams In this study, a new method is presented for the pre-treatment dosimetric verification of these two dimensional distributions of beam intensity by means of a charge coupled device video camera-based fluoroscopic device (henceforth called as CCD-VCFD) as a radiation detecter with a custom-made software for dose calculation from fluorescence signals. This system of dosimeter (CCD-VCFD) could reproduce three dimensional (3D) relative dose distribution from the digitized fluoroscopic signals for small (1.0$\times$1.0 cm$^2$ square, ø 1.0 cm circular ) and large (30$\times$30cm$^2$) field sizes used in intensity modulated radiation therapy (IMRT). For the small beam sizes of photon and electron, the calculations are performed In absolute beam fluence profiles which are usually used for calculation of the patient dose distribution. The good linearity with respect to the absorbed dose, independence of dose rate, and three dimensional profiles of small beams using the CCD-VCFD were demonstrated by relative measurements in high energy Photon (15 MV) and electron (9 MeV) beams. These measurements of beam profiles with CCD-VCFD show good agreement with those with other dosimeters such as utramicro-cylindrical (UC) ionization chamber and radiographic film. The study of the radiation dosimetric technique using CCD-VCFD may provide a fast and accurate pre-treatment verification tool for the small beam used in stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS) and can be used for verification of dose distribution from dynamic multi-leaf collimation system (DMLC).

• Journal of radiological science and technology
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• v.41 no.2
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• pp.141-148
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• 2018

This study examined the properties of photons and the dose distribution in a human body via a simulation where the total body irradiation(TBI) is performed on a pediatric anthropomorphic phantom and a child size water phantom. Based on this, we tried to find the optimal photon beam energy and material for beam spoiler. In this study, MCNPX (Ver. 2.5.0), a simulation program based on the Monte Carlo method, was used for the photon beam analysis and TBI simulation. Several different beam spoiler materials (plexiglass, copper, lead, aluminium) were used, and three different electron beam energies were used in the simulated accelerator to produce photon beams (6, 10, and 15 MeV). Moreover, both a water phantom for calculating the depth-dependent dosage and a pediatric anthropomorphic phantom for calculating the organ dosage were used. The homogeneity of photon beam was examined in different depths for the water phantom, which shows the 20%-40% difference for each material. Next, the org an doses on pediatric anthropomorphic phantom were examined, and the results showed that the average dose for each part of the body was skin 17.7 Gy, sexual gland 15.2 Gy, digestion 13.8 Gy, liver 11.8 Gy, kidney 9.2 Gy, lungs 6.2 Gy, and brain 4.6 Gy. Moreover, as for the organ doses according to materials, the highest dose was observed in lead while the lowest was observed in plexiglass. Plexiglass in current use is considered the most suitable material, and a 6 or 10 MV photon energy plan tailored to the patient condition is considered more suitable than a higher energy plan.

• Proceedings of the KOSOMBE Conference
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• v.1992 no.05
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• pp.148-151
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• 1992

There is a definite requirement to continuously monitor the operating characteristics of radiation therapy machines. It is advisable to monitor the symmetry, flatness, and energy stability of x-ray beams. The semiconductor system was developed using commercially available rectifier diode for th assessment of quality assurance In radiation therapy, which is capable of the above measurements. The beam characteristics of 6MV, 10MV and 21MV photon of Microtron electron accelerator were measured using seven-diodes as detectors and the results were compared with that of using a film results dosimetry with a X-Y plotter. The seven-diode detetor is versatile enough to be used for checking beam profile, flatness, symmetry and energy.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.42 no.2
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• pp.65.4-65.4
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• 2017

The laboratory astrophysics is a new emerging field of basic sciences, and has tremendous discovery potentials. The laboratory astrophysics investigates the basic physical phenomena in the astrophysical objects in controlled and reproducible manners, which has become possible only recently due to the newly-established intense photon and ion beam facilities worldwide. In this presentation, we will introduce several promising ideas for laboratory astrophysics programs that might be readily incorporated in the Pohang Accelerator Laboratory X-ray Free Electron Laser (PAL-XFEL). For example, precise spectroscopic measurements using Electron Beam Ion Trap (EBIT) and intense X-ray photons from the PAL-XFEL can be performed to explore the fundamental processes in high energy X-ray phenomena in the visible universe. Besides, in many violent astrophysical events, the energy density of matter becomes so high that the traditional plasma physics description becomes inapplicable. Generation of such high-energy density states can be also be achieved by using the intense photon beams available from the PAL-XFEL.

• Proceedings of the KOSOMBE Conference
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• v.1997 no.11
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• pp.176-179
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• 1997

In this paper, We developed a radiation therapy planning system using photon beams. Firstly We accomplished simulation on the regular field. Then it has been modified step by step to handle the irregular field, wedge filter, and inhomogeneous field. This system is equipped with useful user interface and database. This system is implemented in Visual C++ as a window-based application program.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.380-388
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• 1990

The MM-22 medical microtron at Korea Cancer Center Hospital is now operational for high energy electron and photon therapy, This microtron is designed to produce 5.3-22.5 MeV electron beams and deliver these to the treatment head through beam transport system with an intensity and stability suitable for cancer treatment. The availability of high quality radiation modalities from the MM-22 shows new possibilities in the treatment of deep seated tumours. Principle of operation, system structures and operating characteristics of the MM-22 are described in this paper.

• Journal of radiological science and technology
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• v.35 no.4
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• pp.335-343
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• 2012

Intensity-modulated radiotherapy(IMRT) have the ability to provide better dose conformity and sparing of critical normal tissues than three-dimensional radiotherapy(3DCRT). Especially, with the benefit of health insurance in 2011, its use now increasingly in many modern radiotherapy departments. Also the use of linear accelerator with high-energy photon beams over 10 MV is increasing. As is well known, these linacs have the capacity to produce photonueutrons due to photonuclear reactions in materials with a large atomic number such as the target, flattening filters, collimators, and multi-leaf collimators(MLC). MLC-based IMRT treatments increase the monitor units and the probability of production of photoneutrons from photon-induced nuclear reactions. The purpose of this study is to quantitatively evaluate the dose of photoneutrons produced from 3DCRT and IMRT technique for Rando phantom in cervical cancer. We performed the treatment plans with 3DCRT and IMRT technique using Rando phantom for treatment of cervical cancer. An Rando phantom placed on the couch in the supine position was irradiated using 15 MV photon beams. Optically stimulated luminescence dosimeters(OSLD) were attached to 4 different locations (abdomen, chest, head and neck, eyes) and from center of field size and measured 5 times each of locations. Measured neutron dose from IMRT technique increased by 9.0, 8.6, 8.8, and 14 times than 3DCRT technique for abdomen, chest, head and neck, and eyes, respectively. When using IMRT with 15 MV photonbeams, the photoneutrons contributed a significant portion on out-of-field. It is difficult to prevent high energy photon beams to produce the phtoneutrons due to physical properties, if necessary, It is difficult to prevent high energy photon beams to produce the phtoneutrons due to physical properties, if necessary, it is need to provide the additional safe shielding on a linear accelerator and should therefore reduce the out-of-field dose.