Methodology for characterizing seeds under development for brachytherapy by means of radiochromic and photographic films.

The development of new medical devices possess a number of challenges, including designing, constructing, and assaying prototypes. In the case of new brachytherapy seeds, this is also true. In this paper, a methodology for rapid dosimetric characterization of (125)I brachytherapy seeds during the early stages of their development is introduced. The characterization methodology is based on the joint use of radiochromic and personal monitoring photographic films in order to determine the planar anisotropy due to the radiation field produced by the seed under development, by means of isodose curves. To evaluate and validate the process, isodose curves were obtained with both types of films after irradiation with a commercial (125)I brachytherapy seed.