Analysis of Scattered Radiation in an Irradiated Body by Means of the Monte Carlo Simulation: Back-scatter Factors of Diagnostic X-rays in the Incident Surface Which is Not Flat

To obtain patient entrance surface dose in X-ray photography, a calculation method based on measured exposure or air kerma radiated from X-ray tube is generally used. Two factors are necessary for this calculation: (1) exposure/air kerma to absorb dose conversion factor and (2) back-scatter factor (BSF) based on X-ray quality and on field size. These BSFs are commonly obtained by interpolation from existent data which were given for a water phantom whose entrance surface is flat. Since patient's surface in X-ray photograph is not flat, some error may occur when existent BSF is used in this calculation. In this article, BSF for water phantom with cylindrical surface and elliptic cylinder surface were calculated by means of the Monte Carlo simulation. And these BSFs were compared with BSF for flat surface phantom. As a result (1) radius of curvature of cylindrical phantom or horizontal axis of elliptic cylinder phantom is smaller, (2) half value layer of X-ray is larger, (3) field size is larger, difference of these BSF with that for flat surface phantom tends to be larger. Maximum difference by calculation condition assumed in this article was more than 10%. The cause of this difference is because scattering volume in irradiated body of cylindrical or elliptic cylinder phantom is smaller than flat surface phantom. To obtain patient entrance surface dose more precisely, it is necessary to use BSF respectively calculated for phantom resembling patient's body such as cylindrical or elliptic cylinder phantom by means of the Monte Carlo simulation.