Thermoluminescent dosimetry applied to radiotherapy carried out around the Therac-20-Saturne linear accelerator

In the first part of this work, the physical and technical aspects necessary to a radiotherapy treatment planning elaboration are presented. These include the apparatus description as well as the measurements of the dosimetric quantities relative to the delivered beams. Since in-vivo measurements are very useful to optimise the treatment conditions, the second part deals with thermoluminescent dosimeters, their characteristics and their setting out such as they be used with maximum efficiency. In-vivo measurements carried out enabled us to estimate the delivered dose to a given tumor with a precision down to +-4%. The registered differences between the measured dose and the prescribed one made possible an appropriate corrective action. Because of the difficulties encountered with conventional dosimetric systems when used in narrow beam measurements, we have developed a new method making use of TL dosimeters. The results obtained will allow treatments of small volume tumors with the significant advantage of saving healthy surrounding tissues from irradiation