Medical Radiation Dosimetry Courses

The ionizing radiation dosimetry section at DTU Health Tech offers two Continuing Education (professional) short-courses related to medical radiation dosimetry:

These courses provide the theoretical, practical and metrological background for measurement and computation of radiation doses.  The emphasis is on radiotherapy dosimetry with MV photon beams, but other beams - most importantly kV x-rays, electrons, and protons - are discussed also. These courses are intended for hospital physicists who are still undergoing training or experienced hospital physicists who would like to refresh their dosimetry knowledge. The courses should also be useful for PhD students doing research within this field. The courses are given at DTU's Risø campus near Roskilde, Denmark.  

Registration and pre-registration: Please send a mail to clan@dtu.dk if you are potentially interested in one or both of these courses. You will subsequently be informed if any new information becomes available. A short-cut link to this page is: www.mrdc.dtu.dk.

The courses are a good supplement to our accredited calibration services as it provides the theory (MRDC) and some of the practical details (PADC) of the DTU calibration procedures.

The courses will be in English unless otherwise noted. All slides and other material will be in English. International participants are very welcome. Courses in Danish, off-site courses or specialized courses can be organized at request.

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Course 1:
Medical Radiation Dosimetry Course (MRDC)

max 8 participants

Next time (tentative) for the 5-day course: April 15 (Monday) -  April 19 (Friday), 2024. 

Deadline for registration: 14 days before course start.

Location: DTU Risø Campus (Build. 313), Frederiksborgvej 399, 4000 Roskilde, Denmark  (about 40 km from Copenhagen Airport)

Times: Day 1: 10:00 to 16:30, Day 2: 9:00 to 16:30, Day 3: 9:00 to 16:30, Day 4: 9:00 to 16:30, and Day 5: 9:00 to 14:00.

This course focuses on theory, and the main elements include:

  • Fluence, kerma, cema and absorbed dose
  • Photon and electron interactions
  • Unrestricted and restricted stopping power
  • Continuous slowing down approximation vs. catastrophic events
  • The electron slowing down spectrum
  • Density-effect correction (Sternheimer correction). 
  • Charge-particle equilibrium and radiation equilibrium
  • Bragg-Gray cavity theory
  • Spencer-Attix-Nahum cavity theory
  • The Fano theorem and its role in cavity theory
  • Interface dosimetry 
  • TRS-398 dosimetry protocol (with 2023 revisions) and dosimetry in kV beams, electron beams, and MV beams.
  • NEW MR-linac dosimetry
  • NEW Proton dosimetry
  • Small-field dosimetry (MV beams, TRS-483)
  • Introduction to neutrons and micro dosimetry
  • Introduction to radiation protection dosimetry
  • Ionization chamber dosimetry 
  • Solid-state dosimetry including alanine and scintillators
  • NEW Monte-Carlo modelling with TOPAS
  • Introduction to important references such as ICRU 90

Teaching methods:

  • Lectures
  • Dialog-based teaching
  • An important element in the course is that the participants will learn to do simple Monte-Carlo simulations on their own computers using TOPAS. For Windows computers, the installation will be made using a pre-configured virtual machine in VirtualBox from Oracle. For MAC or linux computers, we can install it directly. TOPAS is a wrapper that provides access to Geant4 without writing c++ code. TOPAS (see www.TOPASmc.org) can perform detailed simulations of essentially all aspects of medical dosimetry including transport of photons, electrons, protons, and neutrons. TOPAS will be used in the course as a tool to better understand the theory.  
  • Simple exercises

Course material: Slides in handy printout format and as pdf

Preparation / supplementary material: "Fundamentals of Ionizing Radiation Dosimetry" book by Andreo, Burns, Nahum, Seuntjens and Attix (2017).

Price = 11800 DKK excl. vat  (approximately 1640 EUR)

There is a discount for PhD students enrolled at a Danish university.

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Accelerator (DTU)

Course 2:
Practical Accelerator Dosimetry Course (PADC)

max 5 participants

Next time:(not yet scheduled)

Status: Deadline for registration: 30 days before course start (a minimum of 3 participants is required for running this course).

Location: Build. 313, DTU Risø Campus, Frederiksborgvej 399, Roskilde (about 40 km from Copenhagen Airport)

Times: Day 1: 10:00 to 16:00, Day 2: 9:00 to 16:00, and Day 3: 9:00 to 16:00.

Special facilities: Terabalt cobalt source and Varian Truebeam linear accelerator.

Essentially this course is "What to do and why!"

Contents:

  • Practical demonstrations and measurements in cobalt and megavoltage linac beams.
  • Lectures on the IAEA TRS-398 (MV photon and electron reference dosimetry) and TRS-483 code of practices and the main theory behind.
  • Small field dosimetry
  • FFF dosimetry
  • Dosimetry in strong magnetic fields
  • Effective point of measurement
  • Volume averaging
  • Initial and general recombination
  • Polarity effect
  • Dose pr. pulse measurements
  • Beam qualifier measurement
  • Alanine solid-state dosimetry 
  • Electrometer and ionization chamber details.
  • Cables (leakage and garding)
  • Phantoms
  • Humidity, temperature and pressure
  • Scattered radiation
  • Activation related to photo-nuclear reactions in MV photo beams
  • Metrology: How to read a calibration certificate, ISO-17025 accreditation, understanding uncertainty and traceability
  • Details of the DTU calibration services of ionization chambers and electrometers

Preparation / supplementary material: TRS-398, TRS-483, and "Fundamentals of Ionizing Radiation Dosimetry" book by Andreo, Burns, Nahum, Seuntjens and Attix (2017). 

Course material: Slides in handy printout format and as pdf.

Price = 14900 DKK  excl. vat (approximately 2000 EUR).

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Contact

Claus E. Andersen
Senior researcher
DTU Health Tech
+45 46 77 49 12

Contact

Christina Ankjærgaard
Head of Dosimetry, senior researcher
DTU Health Tech
+45 93 51 19 80