Computer dosimetry for flattened and wedged fast-neutron beams

Beam flattening by the use of polyethylene filters has been developed for the 50-MeV d in equilibrium Be fast-neutron therapy beam at the Texas A&M Variable-Energy Cyclotron (TAMVEC) as a result of the need for a more uniform dose distribution at depth within the patient. A computer algorithm has been developed that allows the use of a modified decrement line method to calculate dose distributions; standards decrement line methods do not apply because of off-axis peaking. The dose distributions for measured flattened beams are transformed into distributions that are physically equivalent to an unflattened distribution. In the transformed space, standard decrement line theory yields a distribution for any field size which, by applying the inverse transformation, generates the flattened dose distribution, including the off-axis peaking. A semiempirical model has been constructed that allows the calculation of dose distributions for wedged beams from open-beam data.