MSc student, University of Trieste, ESTECO
Elisabetta Sergi is a master degree student in Physics at University of
Trieste. She has also been working at ESTECO SpA since 2017, beloging to the Numerical Method Group.
Speeches
The discipline of radiation oncology has changed a lot since the first discovery of the therapeutic value of ionizing radiation thanks to technological progress both in facilities and computer science. When dealing with ionizing radiation, all applications must be justified. Assessment of the risks requires the knowledge of the dose received by a patient. Optimization of the procedure is crucial phenomenon: when radiation is to be used for cancer treatment then the exposure should be optimized to minimize any possible detriment, improving the target coverage and sparing organ-at-risk (OAR). As Low As Reasonably Achievable (ALARA) is the main principle of optimization. The optimization process concerns, inter alia, the optimization of all procedures needed to deliver the therapy, in particular the characterization of accelerators. Dose evaluation is performed using Geant4, a general purpose Monte Carlo simulation tool widely used in physics. In this work, an integration node between modeFRONTIER and Geant4 has been developed in order to reproduce the clinical characteristics of a radiotherapic beam and to optimize a simple treatment plan.