12/31/2009· Medical Physics
By: Michael Gossman, MS, DABR, RSO, et al
Vascular access ports are used widely in the administering of drugs for radiation oncology patients. Their dosimetric effect on radiation therapy delivery in photon beams has not been rigorously established. In this work, the effects on external beam fields when any of a variety of vascular access ports were included in the path of a high energy beam are studied. This study specifically identifies sidescatter and backscatter consequences as well as attenuation effects.