Localization of implanted radioactive wires and computation of the dose distribution.

A method is described for the spatial localization of implanted curved radioactive wires. The input data are obtained from two orthogonal radiographs taken on a simulator. A specially constructed double light-box is used for the determination of corresponding points on the projections of the wire in the AP and lateral radiographs. The wires are localized as a series of straight segments and formulae are derived for the computation of the segment activity in order to calculate the dose distribution for uniformly and non-uniformly activated wires. All calculations can be included as additional subprograms in a dose computation program for straight linear sources.