skip to main content
OSTI.GOV title logo U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Title: Dose modeling in ultraviolet phototherapy

Journal Article · · Medical Physics
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1118/1.3484093· OSTI ID:22096784
; ;  [1]
  1. School of Physical Sciences, Dublin City University, Dublin 9 (Ireland)

Purpose: Ultraviolet phototherapy is widely used in the treatment of numerous skin conditions. This treatment is well established and largely beneficial to patients on both physical and psychological levels; however, overexposure to ultraviolet radiation (UVR) can have detrimental effects, such as erythemal responses and ocular damage in addition to the potentially carcinogenic nature of UVR. For these reasons, it is essential to control and quantify the radiation dose incident upon the patient to ensure that it is both biologically effective and has the minimal possible impact on the surrounding unaffected tissue. Methods: To date, there has been little work on dose modeling, and the output of artificial UVR sources is an area where research has been recommended. This work characterizes these sources by formalizing an approach from first principles and experimentally examining this model. Results: An implementation of a line source model is found to give impressive accuracy and quantifies the output radiation well. Conclusions: This method could potentially serve as a basis for a full computational dose model for quantifying patient dose.

OSTI ID:
22096784
Journal Information:
Medical Physics, Vol. 37, Issue 10; Other Information: (c) 2010 American Association of Physicists in Medicine; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0094-2405
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English