title: Clinical applications of alanine/electron spin resonance dosimetry.
abstract: This paper discusses the clinical applications of electron spin resonance (ESR) dosimetry focusing on the ESR/alanine system. A review of few past studies in this area is presented offering a critical overview of the challenges and opportunities for extending this system into clinical applications. Alanine/ESR dosimetry fulfills many of the required properties for several clinical applications such as water-equivalent composition, independence of the sensitivity for the energy range used in therapy and high precision. Improvements in sensitivity and the development of minidosimeters coupled with the use of a spectrometer of higher microwave frequency expanded the possibilities for clinical applications to the new modalities of radiotherapy (intensity-modulated radiation therapy and radiosurgery) and to the detection of low doses such as those present in some radiological image procedures.
authors.affiliation: Departamento de Física, Faculdade de Filosofia Ciências e Letras, USP, Av. Bandeirantes, 3900, Ribeirão Prêto, SP, 14040-901, Brazil, baffa@usp.br.
authors.forename: Oswaldo
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Baffa
authors.forename: Angela
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Kinoshita
mesh_terms: D000409:Alanine / Q000737:chemistry*; D004578:Electron Spin Resonance Spectroscopy / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D011874:Radiometry / Q000379:methods*
chemical_list: D000409:Alanine