Monte Carlo simulations on the water-to-air stopping power ratio for carbon ion dosimetry.

Many papers discussed the I value for water given by the ICRU, concluding that a value of about 80 +/- 2 eV instead of 67.2 eV would reproduce measured ion depth-dose curves. A change in the I value for water would have an effect on the stopping power and, hence, on the water-to-air stopping power ratio, which is important in clinical dosimetry of proton and ion beams. For energies ranging from 50 to 330 MeV/u and for one spread out Bragg peak, the authors compare the impact of the I value on the water-to-air stopping power ratio. The authors calculate ratios from different ICRU stopping power tables and ICRU reports. The stopping power ratio is calculated via track-length dose calculation with SHIELD-HIT07. In the calculations, the stopping power ratio is reduced to a value of 1.119 in the plateau region as compared to the cited value of 1.13 in IAEA TRS-398. At low energies the stopping power ratio increases by up to 6% in the last few tenths of a mm toward the Bragg peak. For a spread out Bragg peak of 13.5 mm width at 130 mm depth, the stopping power ratio increases by about 1% toward the distal end.