title: The dosimetry of a single "hockey stick" portal for treatment of tumors of the cranio-spinal axis.
abstract: Conventional treatment of tumors of the cranio-spinal axis portal usually involves multiple-field, moving junction treatments to avoid overlapping fields over the spinal cord. To avoid these problems, we irradiate the cranio-spinal axis using a single "hockey stick" portal and the 25-MV x-ray beam from a Varian Clinac-35 linear accelerator. Patients are positioned prone on the floor 229 cm from the radiation source and the collimators are rotated 45 degrees so the maximum diagonal dimension of the field 116 cm at 229 cm is coincident with the cranio-spinal axis. The head is alternately rotated to treat the right-hand side one day and the left-hand side the next day. Thermoluminescent dosimetry in an anatomical phantom reveals that, relative to the 100% dose delivered at 4-cm depth on the central axis of the blocked field, the midline posterior fossa dose is about 100%, with a maximum dose of about 105% to the extreme posterior portion of the skull. The midline neck dose is about 95% and the dose to the inferior portion of the spinal cord is about 105%. The doses to other critical organs are also presented.
mesh_terms: D006258:Head and Neck Neoplasms / Q000532:radiotherapy*; D006801:Humans; D011879:Radiotherapy Dosage; D013120:Spinal Cord Neoplasms / Q000532:radiotherapy*; D013125:Spinal Neoplasms / Q000532:radiotherapy*; D013819:Thermoluminescent Dosimetry / Q000379:methods