title: The three dose components of negative pion beam and their role in pion radiotherapy.
abstract: A new method has been developed for analyzing therapeutic negative pion beams into three LET (linear energy transfer) dose components inherent in such a beam. The technique utilizes thin silicon detectors to obtain pulse height spectra produced by the various particles in the beam traversing the detectors. It is shown that a low LET group is correlated with the incoming pions, muons and electrons; a medium LET group corresponds to protons, deuterons, tritons, and high energy alpha particles; and a high LET group is due to low energy alpha particles, 3He and recoil particles. Several beams used clinically have been studied.
mesh_terms: D004735:Energy Transfer; D006801:Humans; D011882:Radiotherapy, High-Energy / Q000295:instrumentation; D012878:Skin Neoplasms / Q000532:radiotherapy