Design Improvement of an X-ray Tube Applicator to Reduce ORE

Radiation therapy has many advantages to treat cancer relative to other therapies. It does not induce scar or hair loss, and could can cover larger area than others. However, one the most critical issues about radiation therapy is shielding. Not only unnecessary exposure to patients but also those to doctors or nurses who participate in the treatment have to be lowered as possible. Occupational radiation exposure (ORE) is limited to 50 mSv per year by NCRP's recommendation. In this study, MC simulations were performed to evaluate the effective dose induced by the miniature x-ray tube. It was confirmed that when the applicator is adopted to the tube, the effective dose to doctor is less than the occupational radiation exposure limit recommended by ICRP. All assumptions used in this calculation were too highly conservative enough to have reliability. However some limitations still exist; for example, the more accurate results could be obtained if most recent version of conversion factors was used or we specified the organs irradiated and weighted the values by the radiation sensitivity.