Radiological Characterization of Tissue Equivalent Materials: A Computational Approach

Area of Science:

• Medical physics
• Radiation dosimetry
• Materials science

Background:

• Phantoms are essential for evaluating new medical techniques and simulating clinical conditions safely.
• Accurate simulation requires materials that mimic human tissue properties.

Purpose of the Study:

• To explore the efficacy of various tissue equivalent phantom materials.
• To identify optimal materials for different radiation types in medical applications.

Main Methods:

• Evaluated radiological parameters (mass energy absorption coefficient, CT number, etc.) for materials like PMMA, solid water, SOT, and ST.
• Utilized established (XCOM, SRIM/TRIM) and new (Phy-X/PSD, PAGEX) computational codes for analysis.

Main Results:

• Solid water demonstrated superior tissue equivalency for gamma rays and electrons.
• Polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) and ST were identified as optimal for proton and alpha particles, respectively.
• New codes (PAGEX, Phy-X/PSD) showed high reliability compared to established databases.

Conclusions:

• The study provides validated data for selecting appropriate phantom materials for radiation therapies.
• Results support the development of novel phantom compositions for advanced medical imaging and treatment planning.
• Newly developed computational tools offer a reliable and user-friendly approach for phantom material analysis.