A fundamental approach to the design of a dose-rate calculation program for use in brachytherapy planning.

A method, developed from the Quantisation Method, of calculating dose-rate distributions around uniformly and nonuniformly loaded brachytherapy sources is described. It allows accurate and straightforward corrections for oblique filtration and self-absorption to be made. Using this method, dose-rate distributions have been calculated for sources of radium 226, gold 198, iridium 192, caesium 137 and cobalt 60, all of which show very good agreement with existing measured and calculated data. This method is now the basis of the Interstitial and Intracavitary Dosimetry (IID) program on the General Electric RT/PLAN computerised treatment planning system.