AbstractID: 6788 Title: Contralateral breast dose reduction using a virtual wedge
For the treatment of a breast cancer, one of our goals is to minimize a contralateral
breast dose, while at the same time maintaining good tumor dose coverage. To achieve
this goal, sometimes the use of a medial wedge is required in a situation that cannot
afford to use custom-made breast shields. In this situation, the virtual wedge (Siemens,
Inc., US), we believe, might be a solution. This study investigates and verifies this for
the case of a virtual wedge in comparison with conventional treatments that do not
employ a virtual wedge but a physical wedge or an open beam on a medial side. Then,
this study is followed by an analysis on the nature of a contralateral dose from the
comparative results. As a result, this study showed a promising feature of a virtual
wedge equipped in the Primus machine which on medial side in essence delivers
reduced amount of dose to the contralateral breast than an open beam does and in a
clinical situation delivers smaller amount of dose than physical wedges does.
Additionally, this study showed a difference between a virtual and a dynamic wedges
(Varian, Inc., US): the use of a virtual wedge delivered a different trend of dose
disbribution, relatively to that obtained with the use of a physical wedge, around the
contralateral breast from that of a dynamic wedge.