[en] Kerma rates and whole-body absorbed dose rate are calculated above various soils with computer codes using Monte Carlo techniques. 6 refs., 8 figs., 1 tab. (Author)

[en] Purpose: To test a novel total body irradiation (TBI) system using conformal partial arc with patient lying on the stationary couch which is biologically equivalent to a moving couch TBI. This improves the scanning field TBI, which is previously presented. Methods: The Uniform MU Modulated arc Segments TBI or UMMS-TBI scans the treatment plane with a constant machine dose rate and a constant gantry rotation speed. A dynamic MLC pattern which moves while gantry rotates has been designed so that the treatment field moves same distance at the treatment plane per each gantry angle, while maintaining same treatment field size (34cm) at the plane. Dose across the plane varies due to the geometric differences including the distance from the source to a point of interest and the different attenuation from the slanted depth which changes the effective depth. Beam intensity is modulated to correct the dose variation across the plane by assigning the number of gantry angles inversely proportional to the uncorrected dose. Results: Measured dose and calculated dose matched within 1 % for central axis and 3% for off axis for various patient scenarios. Dose from different distance does not follow the inverse square relation as it is predicted from calculation. Dose uniformity better than 5% across 180 cm at 10cm depth is achieved by moving the gantry from −55 to +55 deg. Total treatment time for 2 Gy AP/PA fields is 40–50 minutes excluding patient set up time, at the machine dose rate of 200 MU/min. Conclusion: This novel technique, yet accurate but easy to implement enables TBI treatment in a small treatment room with less program development preparation than other techniques. The VMAT function of treatment delivery is not required to modulate beams. One delivery pattern can be used for different patients by changing the monitor units.

[en] The objective of this work is to study in-vivo dosimetry performed in a series of 54 patients receiving total body irradiation (TBI) at the Salah AZAIZ Institute (ISA) of Tunis since 2004. In-vivo dosimetry measurements were compared to calculated doses from monitor units delivered

No abstract available

[en] In this contribution the possibilities of the thremoluminiscence dosimetry method under the difficult conditions of total body irradiation at low dose rate are illustrated. (H.W.). 2 res.; 1 fig

[en] From 1983 to 1989, six patients with disseminated neoplastic disease non-responsive to conventional therapy were treated with palliative antialgic means. Three patients with breast cancer, two with prostate and one with Ewing's sarcoma received a total of eight treatments. The irradiation was first administered to the half-body presenting worst symptomatology. Total single dose of 800 cGy was delivered to the lower half-body and 600 cGy to the upper half-body. Pain relief was observed 24 to 48 hours after the irradiation in all patients. The haematological tolerance was good and deaths of these patients were not related to complications due to the radiation therapy. (author)

[en] There was no internationally agreed and unified operational dose quantity for use in radiological protection until 1985. Most personnel monitoring services made measurements of penetrating and non-penetrating radiations on the surface of the body at the position of the dosemeter, and considered these to be whole-body dose and skin dose respectively. The former was regarded as a reasonable approximation to effective dose equivalent. The International Commission on Radiation Units and Measurements (ICRU) proposed new operational quantities for environmental monitoring (ambient dose equivalent) H^*(10), and directional dose equivalent H'(d), and for individual monitoring individual dose equivalent, penetrating, H_p(10), and individual dose equivalent, superficial, H_s(d). With the implementation of the new operational quantities it has become important to look into the aspects of correlating past records of individual doses to the new quantities. (Author)

No abstract available

[en] A method is presented that permits health physicists to estimate the risks of radiation-induced cancers in populations of males or females exposed to whole-body external irradiation at any age. Graphics are presented that may be used for either acute or chronic exposures. There is good agreement for chronic exposures when the cancer estimates determined here are compared with those prescribed in BEIR V. There are differences between the two when considering some acute exposures. In such circumstances, the method given here generally gives conservative results

[en] Partial-volume contamination and overlapping resonances are common problems in whole-body MR spectroscopy and can affect absolute or relative intensity and chemical-shift measurements. One technique, based on solution of constrained eigenvalue problems, treats spectra as N-dimensional signatures and minimizes contributions of undesired signatures while maximizing contributions of desired signatures in compromised spectra. Computer simulations and both high-resolution (400-MHz) and whole-body (63.8-MHz) phantom studies tested accuracy and reproducibility of spectral decomposition. Results demonstrated excellent decomposition and good reproducibility within certain constraints. The authors conclude that eigenanalysis may improve quantitation of spectra without introducing operator bias