Dose enhancement close to platinum implants for the 4, 6, and 10 MV stereotactic radiosurgery

Three photon interaction processes, namely, the photoelectric effect, Compton effect, and pair production, can occur when materials with high atomic numbers are irradiated by the high- and low-energy bremsstrahlung photons from a linear accelerator. A dose enhancement, due to the photoelectric effect and pair production, near targets with platinum implants (with a high atomic number) in radiosurgery cannot be predicted by the XKnife® radiosurgery treatment planning system. In the present work, Monte Carlo simulations using PRESTA EGS4 were employed to investigate the resulting dose enhancements from 4, 6, and 10 MV energies commonly used in the stereotactic radiosurgery system. Dose enhancements from 32% to 68% were observed close to the platinum implant for the above energies when using a 12.5 mm collimator. Comparatively higher dose enhancements were observed when using smaller collimators. It was found that this dose enhancement increased with beam energy but decreased as beam size increased. © 2004 American Association of Physicists in Medicine.