The application of FLUKA to dosimetry and radiation therapy
1 University of Houston, Houston, TX, USA
2 University of Pavia, Italy
3 INFN, Italy
4 University of Milan, Italy
5 CERN, Geneva, Switzerland
6 SLAC, Stanford, CA, USA
7 GSF, Neuherberg, Germany
8 University of Leipzig, Germany
9 ETH, Zurich, Switzerland
10 NASA-JSC, Houston, TX, USA
* Corresponding author: pinsky{at}uh.edu
The FLUKA Monte Carlo code has been evolving over the last several decades and is now widely used for radiation shielding calculations. In order to facilitate the use of FLUKA in dosimetry and therapy applications, supporting software has been developed to allow the direct conversion of the output files from standard CT-scans directly into a voxel geometry for transport within FLUKA. Since the CT-scan information essentially contains only the electron density information over the scanned volume, one needs the specific compositions for each voxel individually. We present here the results of a simple algorithm to assign tissues in the human body to one of four categories: soft-tissue, hard-bone, trabecular-bone and porous-lung. In addition, we explore the problem of the pathlength distributions in porous media such as trabecular bone. A mechanism will be implemented within FLUKA to allow for variable multipal fixed density materials to accommodate the pathlength distributions discovered.