title: Survey of patient dosimetry for head and neck cancer patients undergoing external radiotherapy treatment: a study from northeastern hospitals of India.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To study dosimetry of patients during the external radiotherapy of head and neck cancers from different hospitals of the northeastern region (NER) of India.
  
  
  METHODS
  35 confirmed cases of head and neck cancers reporting to three different hospitals in the NER of India who underwent radiation treatment were the materials for the study. Dosimetry was carried out at 8(eight) anatomical points to these patients, namely, target (entrance and exit points), forehead, chest, abdomen, gonad, arm, and leg respectively by thermoluminescence (TL) as well as optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dosimeters. Unlike conventional appliances, we used common iodized salt as TL/OSL phosphor.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Patient dosimetry was found to vary with an average of 1.17 +/- 0.39 Sv at forehead, 1.24 +/- 0.39 Sv at chest, 0.52 +/- 0.13 Sv at gonad to a minimum of 0.26 +/- 0.07 Sv at leg areas when exposed to a cumulative dose of 65 Sv at the target.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Maximum dose received from a stray radiation is about 1.5 Sv at forehead/chest and dosimetry of patient among the three centers is not significantly different at the 5% level of probability.
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiotherapy, RIMS, Imphal, India.
authors.forename: Arunkumar B
authors.initials: AB
authors.lastname: Sharma
authors.forename: Tomcha Th
authors.initials: TT
authors.lastname: Singh
authors.forename: Khelendra N
authors.initials: KN
authors.lastname: Singh
authors.forename: R K
authors.initials: RK
authors.lastname: Gartia
mesh_terms: D003625:Data Collection; D006258:Head and Neck Neoplasms / Q000532:radiotherapy*; D006761:Hospitals; D006801:Humans; D007194:India; D011874:Radiometry; D011878:Radiotherapy / Q000379:methods*