Gamma Ray Spectroscopy for Dose Rate Constants

描述（由申请人提供）：在前列腺中永久植入碘-125放射性粒子或钯-103放射性粒子已成为仔细选择的前列腺癌患者的流行放射治疗形式。该手术是微创的，通常在门诊的一天手术单元中进行。与治疗相关的发病率，如尿失禁和阳痿是相当低的种子植入，并在选定的患者的癌症控制是与其他治疗方式，如手术一样好。由于这些原因，公众对种子植入的兴趣正在迅速增长。放射治疗的临床成功高度依赖于递送所需处方剂量的能力。对于前列腺粒子植入，这种能力既影响将放射性粒子放置在预先设计的空间图案中以获得足够的空间剂量覆盖的准确性，也影响每个单独粒子的基本剂量测定特性的准确性。本项目的主要目的是开发一种新方法，用于确定用于前列腺粒子植入的间质近距离放射治疗粒子的剂量率常数，这是AAPM TG-43形式中唯一的绝对量。新方法利用高分辨率伽马射线能谱仪，并能够确定剂量率常数，而不需要知道空气比释动能强度。我们的假设是，所提出的新方法的基础上，伽马射线光谱法是上级目前公认的标准实验方法，使用氟化锂TLD。它有可能提高前列腺粒子植入物剂量测定的准确性和一致性。绝对剂量测定的这种改进将影响所有近距离放射治疗患者的临床实践，因为与随机误差不同，不同型号近距离放射治疗源的绝对剂量测定参数的误差以系统方式和相同方向影响所有患者。由于前列腺近距离放射治疗现已成为选定的患者的治疗方法的选择，这种普及导致了许多新的设计的种子临床实施的介绍，我们假设，伽马射线光谱可以用来减少剂量率常数的不确定性，并提高剂量在大量的前列腺癌患者。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Permanent implantation of either iodine-125 seeds or palladium-103 radioactive seeds in the prostate has become a popular form of radiation therapy for carefully selected prostate cancer patients. The procedure is minimally invasive and is usually performed in a one-day surgery unit on an outpatient basis. The treatment related morbidity such as urinary incontinence and sexual impotence is fairly low for seed implantation, and control of the cancer in selected patients is as good as that with other treatment modalities such as surgery. For these reasons the public interest in seed implantation is growing rapidly. The clinical success of radiation therapy has been highly dependent on the capability of delivering a desired prescription dose. For prostate seed implant, such a capability is impinged on both the accuracy of placing the radioactive seeds in a predesigned spatial pattern for adequate spatial dose coverage and on the accuracy of the fundamental dosimetry properties of each individual seed. The primary objective of this project is to develop a new method for determination of dose rate constant, the only absolute quantity in the AAPM TG-43 formalism, for interstitial brachytherapy seeds that are used for prostate seed implants. The new method utilizes high-resolution gamma ray spectrometry and would be capable of determining the dose rate constant without the need of knowing the air kerma strength. Our hypothesis is that the proposed new method based on gamma ray spectrometry is superior to currently accepted standard experimental method using LiF TLDs. It has the potential of improving the accuracy and consistency of the dosimetry of prostate seed implants. This improvement in absolute dosimetry will impact the clinical practice of all brachytherapy patients because unlike random errors, errors in absolute dosimetry parameters for different models of brachytherapy sources affect all patients in a systematic fashion and in the same direction. Since prostate brachytherapy has now become a treatment method of choice for selected patients and this popularity has led to the introduction of many new designs of seeds for clinical implementation, we hypothesize that gamma ray spectroscopy can be used to reduce the uncertainty in dose rate constants and improve the dosimetry in a large number of prostate cancer patients.