Medical Radiation Dosimetry Course (MRDC)

max 8 participants

Next time (tentative) for the 5-day course: April 7 (Monday) -  April 11 (Friday), 2025. 

Deadline for registration: 14 days before course start (but please send an e-mail to let us know if you are interested in the course).

Location: DTU Risø Campus (Build. 313), Frederiksborgvej 399, 4000 Roskilde, Denmark  (about 40 km from Copenhagen Airport)

Times: Day 1: 10:00 to 16:30, Day 2: 9:00 to 16:30, Day 3: 9:00 to 16:30, Day 4: 9:00 to 16:30, and Day 5: 9:00 to 14:00.

This course focuses on theory, and the main elements include:

• Fluence, kerma, cema and absorbed dose
• Photon and electron interactions
• Unrestricted and restricted stopping power
• Continuous slowing down approximation vs. catastrophic events
• The electron slowing-down spectrum
• Density-effect correction (Sternheimer correction ). 
• Charge-particle equilibrium and radiation equilibrium
• Bragg-Gray cavity theory
• Spencer-Attix-Nahum cavity theory
• The Fano theorem and its role in cavity theory
• Interface dosimetry 
• TRS-398 dosimetry protocol (with 2024 revisions)
• Dosimetry in kV beams, electron beams, and MV beams.
• MR-linac dosimetry
• Introduction to proton dosimetry
• Small-field dosimetry (MV beams, TRS-483)
• Neutrons and microdosimetry
• Radiation protection dosimetry
• Ionization chamber dosimetry 
• Solid-state dosimetry including alanine and scintillators
• Monte-Carlo modelling with TOPAS

Teaching methods:

• Lectures
• Dialog-based teaching
• An important element in the course is that the participants will learn to do simple Monte-Carlo simulations on their own computers using TOPAS. For Windows computers, the installation will be made using a pre-configured virtual machine in VirtualBox from Oracle. For MAC or linux computers, we can install it directly. TOPAS is a wrapper that provides access to Geant4 without writing c++ code. TOPAS (see www.TOPASmc.org and OpenTopas ) can perform detailed simulations of essentially all aspects of medical dosimetry including transport of photons, electrons, protons, and neutrons. TOPAS will be used in the course as a tool to better understand the theory.  
• Simple exercises

Course material: Slides in handy printout format and as pdf

Preparation / supplementary material: "Fundamentals of Ionizing Radiation Dosimetry" book by Andreo, Burns, Nahum, Seuntjens and Attix (2017) and/or "Radiation Physics for Medical Physicists" (third edition) by Podgorsak (2016). 

Price = 11800 DKK excl. vat  (approximately 1640 EUR)

There is a discount for PhD students enrolled at a Danish university.