Characterization of tissues equivalent to the human body by the Monte Carlo method for X-rays

There is a need to have materials equivalent to the human body that have the appropriate characteristics to be used as a substitute tissue in the clinical practices of radio-diagnosis, radiotherapy. In Arequipa, Peru, there are two health centers in radiotherapy applications, one with a Theratron Co-60 gamma irradiator and another with Elekta Linac; the Medical Physics Area of the School of Physics of the National University of San Agustin de Arequipa, were four equivalent materials based on epoxy resin, phenolitic spheres, calcium carbonate, etc. were built, such as bone tissue, soft tissue, adipose and lung tissue compared with water, whit the purpose of studying and applying them in future clinical applications. In this work we describe its physical and dosimetric characterization to determine its use as an equivalent material or manikin. The materials are 1 cm thick and 30 cm in diameter, the materials are non-malleable solids, they do not degrade, they have stability in their consistency due to temperature and irradiation, they are not toxic in their use, determining densities from 0.32 g/cm³ for the lung tissue to 1.8 g/cm³ for the bone material. These materials were analyzed by scanning electron microscopy, giving the percentages by weight of the elements found to determine their effective atomic number, the physical analysis to determine their mass absorption and energy coefficients, which were studied for energy photons between 1 KeV at 20 MeV. The simulation of the equivalent materials and the physical and dosimetric study were found using the code Penelope 2008 Monte Carlo method and validated by the Nist database. The results obtained according to their coefficients of mass attenuation of each material, show lung, bone, soft and adipose tissue with differences with respect to the same Nist materials. The range maximum and minimum Rd deviation found was 35.65 - 3.16 for bone, 28.5 - 6.74 for lung, 33.78 - 9.06 for soft tissue and 86.42 - 1.28 for adipose tissue. The Pdp dosimetric analysis was performed with gamma radiation (Co-60) and high energy X-rays (6 MV). (Author)