Bone models for use in radiotherapy dosimetry.

The development of completely artificial, realistic body phantoms for use in radiotherapy dosimetry is hampered by the lack of suitable, definitive elemental data for many skeletal materials. Using published and measured data, the proportions of the tissue components for the important human bones considered in radiotherapy treatments have been derived. Both the tissue proportions and the resulting elementary compositions are listed in tabular form. Simple models of the heads of the humerus and femur are also given. The data are presented in a form such that average bone substitutes can be readily formulated.