Assessment of Photon Beam Skyshine Dose Equivalent Rate of a 4 MeV Radiation Therapy Bunker Using Analytical and Monte Carlo Methods

Skyshine radiation dose equivalent dose rate is known as scattered radiation by the room above air to points at the ground level points outside the Linear Accelerator (LINAC) room. Our aim was to estimate skyshine around the LINAC-based radiotherapy by a 4MV LINAC photon beam.

Monte Carlo (MC) MCNP code calculation was conducted to skyshine at the control room, 60Co treatment room, physics, and simulator rooms. National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements (NCRP) 151 was also used and it reported analytical formulation methods for photon beam calculation. A Flattering Filter (FF) equipped and Flattening Filter-Free (FFF) LINACs photon beams were derived and differences and agreements were discussed.

The results showed high skyshine for FF equipped relative to FFF LINACs. This effect may be attributed to photon beam hardening by FF in the LINAC head and higher transmission through the ceiling shield and more presence of photons on the roof above the air. NCRP 151 method results were higher than MC simulated photon beam skyshine dose equivalent dose rate and it may be the cause of the inflexible analytical method in contrast to MC simulation. Finally, FFF and FF-equipped LINACs result in skyshine compared and they compared to NCRP 151 report. MC simulation performed reasonably in estimation in different conditions.

Our results showed that FF-equipped skyshine is higher than FFF LINAC and NCRP 151 is an inflexible method that does not take some effective parameters into account and calculates skyshine higher.