Photoneutrons and Dose due to Scattered Photons in a VolumeLINAC: Tomotherapy

Worldwide cancer is a public health problem, the treatment alternatives include surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy, in its two modalities: Teletherapy and Brachytherapy. For radiotherapy, electrons or X-rays are used, which are produced in a linear accelerator, in order to deposit the highest dose in the tumor while avoiding exposing the surrounding healthy tissues. In Teletherapy, the most modern technology is Tomotherapy. The Oncology Medical Specialty Unit of the Zacatecas State Health Secretariat has a 6 MV Tomotherapy equipment model TomoTherapy HD, where the treatment beam is applied in slices and the tumor can be irradiated at 360°. No studies on photoneutron production and scattered radiation have been reported for this type of equipment. The aim of this work was to determine the presence of photoneutrons and to measure the dose due to photons scattered around the isocenter.