Calculation of effective dose from measurements of secondary neutron spectra and scattered photon dose from dynamic MLC IMRT for 6 MV, 15 MV, and 18 MV beam energies

Effective doses were calculated from the delivery of 6 MV, 15 MV, and 18 MV conventional and intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) prostate treatment plans. ICRP-60 tissue weighting factors were used for the calculations. Photon doses were measured in phantom for all beam energies. Neutron spectra were measured for 15 MV and 18 MV and ICRP-74 quality conversion factors used to calculate ambient dose equivalents. The ambient dose equivalents were corrected for each tissue using neutron depth dose data from the literature. The depth corrected neutron doses were then used as a measure of the neutron component of the ICRP protection quantity, organ equivalent dose. IMRT resulted in an increased photon dose to many organs. However, the IMRT treatments resulted in an overall decrease in effective dose compared to conventional radiotherapy. This decrease correlates to the ability of an intensity-modulated field to minimize dose to critical normal structures in close proximity to the treatment volume. In a comparison of the three beam energies used for the IMRT treatments, 6 MV resulted in the lowest effective dose, while 18 MV resulted in the highest effective dose. This is attributed to the large neutron contribution for 18 MV compared to no neutron contribution for 6 MV. (c) 2006 American Association of Physicists in Medicine.