On the applicability of the AAPM TG-60/TG-43 dose calculation formalism tointravascular line sources: Proposal for an adapted formalism

Despite the widely recognized usefulness of the AAPM TG-43 brachytherapy do se calculation formalism, a straightforward application of this approach to describe the dose distribution about intravascular line sources as propose d by TG-60 may be difficult or even impossible, especially when these line sources emit low-energy photons or beta particles. The causes of these limi tations are investigated and illustrated by means of some numerical example s. In order to solve the observed limitations an adapted formalism is propo sed, intended specifically for the description of the dose rate distributio n about line sources but conceptually similar to the TG-43/TG-60 formalism. Several examples are presented to illustrate the usefulness of the propose d line source dose calculation formalism. (C) 2001 American Association of Physicists in Medicine.