The spatial and energy dependence of bremsstrahlung production about beta point sources in H2O

A Monte Carlo simulation was performed to characterize the spatial and energy distribution of bremsstrahlung radiation from beta point sources important to radioimmunotherapy (RIT). Using the EGS4 Monte Carlo code, the isotropic emission and transport of monoenergetic 0.1-, 0.5-, 1.0-, 2.0-, and 3.0-MeV electrons and 32P and 90Y beta particles was simulated in an infinite, homogeneous H2O phantom. The probability of bremsstrahlung production for each Monte Carlo-simulated electron step was accumulated in energy intervals not exceeding 5 keV and stored as a function of radial position. To validate this scheme, the EGS4 code was tested in the continuous slowing down approximation (csda) mode, with resulting radiation yields seen to agree with values in ICRU Report No. 37 (ICRU, Bethesda, MD, 1984) to better than 1.6%. The radiation yield calculated with the simulation of secondary particles is seen to be 3%-5% greater than the csda yield. The photon energy distributions are characterized by a typically broad bremsstrahlung spectrum with the probability of photon generation decreasing with radial distance. In the energy range 0.05-0.511 MeV, the probability for bremsstrahlung production from 90Y (2.76 x 10(-2) decay-1) is twice that from 32P (1.35 x 10(-2) decay-1). When passed through 10 cm of H2O and put upon a standard NaI scintillation camera, count rates of 2.3 x 10(-6) and 1.2 x 10(-6) counts s-1 Bq-1 are estimated from point sources of 90Y and 32P. These results predict the inherent spatial resolution limitation and provide the initial data required for modeling and analyzing the scatter, attenuation, and image formation processes in quantitative imaging of bremsstrahlung for RIT dosimetry.