Optimized tissue compensators.

The fabrication of retracted missing tissue compensators which account only for missing primary attenuation produces compensation which is less than optimum. Experimental results can be accurately reproduced with theoretical calculations based on primary and first-order scattered radiation. This method of analysis may be extended to predict the shape of a compensator which will produce the desired dose distribution at a given depth in phantom. An optimized compensator is constructed based on these theoretical considerations and the analysis of its performance is presented.