Physical approach to depth dose distributions in a water phantom irradiated by a teleisotope photon beam

The physical basis of deposition of radiation dose within a homogeneous phantom irradiated by a monoenergetic photon beam has been studied in terms of photon attenuation and energy-absorption properties of the phantom material. A semi-empirical model based on the Klein-Nishina formula for Compton scattering, and the ratio of multiply scattered to singly scattered photon fluences, has been developed for the scatter dose component within a realistic phantom to determine the central-axial percent depth dose (PDD) and off-central-axis ratios (OCR). Differences between the predicted and measured values of PDD and OCR for cobalt-60 and cesium-137 beams are less than 3% for fields of equivalent-square-side less than 20 cm, and less than 5% for larger fields. Beam profiles of all field sizes can be well simulated by this model and reasonable agreement has been found between the predicted and tabulated values of scatter functions and the backsetter factor for cobalt-60 beams. This formulation involves no variable parameters, and is valid for all values of the source-to-surface distance, field length and width, and field shape. However, the algorithm developed is not suitable for routine multiple-field treatment planning because it requires large computer memory size.