Fast and thermal neutron profiles for a 25-MV x-ray beam.

High-energy x-ray radiotherapy machines generate neutrons by photonuclear reactions in the target and the treatment head and expose the patient to a neutron flux. In order to evaluate the neutron exposure quantitatively, fast and thermal neutron profiles for 25-MV x-ray beams of the Sagittaire accelerator have been measured. An activation technique, using the reactions 31P(n, gamma)32P (thermal neutrons) and 31P(n, p)31Si (fast neutrons, E greater than 0.7 MeV), has been developed to measure fast- and thermal-neutron fluxes in an intense high-energy photon flux. The sensitivity of this activation detector to high-energy photons, which has plagued many previous neutron measurements, was carefully measured and found to be less than 4%. Neutron fluxes for various photon field sizes ranging from 5 X 5 cm to 30 X 30 cm have been measured. The fast-neutron profiles were observed to have rounded edges and the thermal fluxes were found to be relatively uniform. In the central part of the x-ray beam, the ratio of neutron dose equivalent to photon absorbed dose was found to be between 0.2% and 0.5%. Outside of the photon field, the ratio of neutron dose equivalent to the central-axis photon absorbed dose was 0.12%.