Radiation

and Nuclear Safety Authority 1 (6)

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Shielding calculations for radiotherapy ‐ calculation examples

General

When planning new premises, keep in mind that, often, the premises are in
use for several decades and the equipment is changed approximately every
ten years. It is recommended to use initial shielding that is slightly thicker than
the required level or at least to reserve space for increasing shielding at a
later time. Part of the shielding may be easily removable for the purposes of
equipment replacement. It is also recommended to reserve the rooms
adjacent to the radiotherapy rooms for maintenance and storage purposes.
STUK can provide more information, as necessary.

The dose that results from radiation practices must not exceed 120 µSv per
week in the supervised area or 6 µSv per week in other areas. Furthermore,
the instantaneous dose rate must not exceed 20 µSv/h in areas where
persons stay or work at all times. The shielding calculations are performed at
the maximum excitation energy and field size of the radiotherapy equipment
unless deviating from the maximum values is justified. The dose rate is
primarily selected based on the highest value to be used. If the workload of
the equipment is not known in advance, the calculations must use a value of
800 Gy/week, at the minimum.

The occupancy factor (T) refers to the use rate of a room. If a room is
occupied during the use of radiotherapy equipment, the occupancy factor is T
= 1, but T may also be lower. In work areas (such as control rooms, offices or
laboratories), waiting rooms and patient rooms, the occupancy factor is T = 1.
In indoor and outdoor premises where no persons remain on a continuous
basis (such as toilets, corridors, streets and storage rooms), the occupancy
factor is at least 0.1. If there are persons at all times in a corridor, the
occupancy value should be
T = 1.

The orientation factor (U) takes into account that the direction of the radiation
beam of the equipment may vary. For isocentric equipment, the factor should
be set to U = 1 down and at least to U = 0.25 in the other possible directions.
If the equipment is intended to be used in a specific direction to a
considerable degree, for example in whole body radiotherapy, the orientation
factor for that direction should be U = 1.

Dose in the primary radiation beam behind shielding

The transmission factor B for radiation shields required in the primary

radiation beam is

∙
, (1)
∙ ∙ ∙

where Dmax is the planning value (120 μSv or 6 μSv per week). The distance
between the viewing point and radiation source (accelerator’s target) is r. The
distance between the target and isocenter is ro. DI is the planned weekly
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workload (maximum dose to water in the isocenter). U is the orientation factor

and T is the occupancy factor.

If there are persons staying or working at the viewing point at all times, it must
be checked whether the calculated attenuation is also sufficient in terms of the
instantaneous dose rate. The instantaneous dose rate can be calculated
with the formula

∙ ∙
, (2)

where is the dose rate of the radiotherapy equipment in the isocenter and
the other annotations are as above. The orientation and occupancy factors
are not used here.

If, based on the weekly dose, the assessed shielding is not sufficient for
limiting the instantaneous dose rate, the necessary transmission factor shall
be calculated according to the instantaneous dose rate (Formula 2).

The number of the tenth value layers necessary for the shielding (TVL, see
Table 1) is n

1/ . (3)

The necessary shielding thickness s is calculated with the formula

1 ∙ . (4)

TVL1 refers to the first tenth value layer and TVLe refers to the subsequent
tenth value layers. The TVL values are selected from Table 1 according to the
materials and radiation energy used.

Maximum  Lead  Concrete  Steel  Gravel 

energy [MeV]  TVL1  TVLe  TVL1  TVLe  TVL1  TVLe  TVL1  TVLe 
2  35  40  220  200  75  70  ‐  340 
4  50  55  290  290  90  90  ‐  490 
6  55  55  350  350  100  100  ‐  570 
8  55  55  380  380  105  105  ‐  630 
10  55  55  410  400  105  105  ‐  650 
12  55  55  440  420  105  105  ‐  690 
15  55  55  470  440  110  110  ‐  720 
20  55  55  490  450  110  110  ‐  730 
25  55  55  510  460  110  110  ‐  750 

TABLE 1. Tenth value layers for primary radiation [mm].

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Figure 1. Typical radiotherapy room.

Example 1. Dimensioning shielding for primary radiation

Calculating the need for additional steel shielding when protecting an

uncontrolled area outside the building: point A in Figure 1. Assumptions: The
equipment has a dose rate of 4 Gy/min in the isocenter. A planned workload
of 875 Gy/week, out of which approximately 500 Gy at the maximum
excitation energy of 15 MeV. The distance between point A and the target is
5.5 m. The allowed weekly dose in the area is 6 μSv. The occupancy factor T
is 0.1 and the orientation factor U is 0.25. Originally, the wall comprises 13 cm
of steel and 100 cm of concrete. The highest energy is always used as the
basis for the calculation. In this case, the transmission factor according to
formula (1) must not exceed

6 ∙ 10 ∙ 5,5
8,3 ∙ 10
875 ∙ 0,25 ∙ 0,1 ∙ 1

and, therefore, the necessary number of tenth value layers is n = log10(1/B) =

5.08 TVL.

Since steel is the first material in the direction of radiation and its TVL1 and
TVLe values are the same, the number of tenth value steel layers ns can be
calculated by dividing the thickness of steel with its TVL value: ns = 13 cm / 11
cm = 1.182. Since concrete is the next material after steel, the number of
tenth value concrete layers nc can be calculated by dividing the thickness of
concrete with its TVLe value: nc = 100 cm / 44 cm = 2.273. The total number of
tenth value layers is ns + nc 3.45. Therefore, approximately 1.6 TVL are still
needed for the target value of 5.08 TVL, which can be achieved with 18 cm of
additional steel.

If there are persons staying in the area at all times, the additional shielding
according to the above calculation is not sufficient because the instantaneous
dose rate in point A is
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4 / ∙ ∙ 1 1,1 66
,
5,5

which exceeds the limit value of 20 μSv/h. In order to lower the dose rate, the
steel thickness must be increased by approximately a half tenth value layer,
which results in 24 cm of additional steel instead of the previously calculated
18 cm.

Dose from secondary radiation behind shielding

Secondary radiation is generated when the primary beam touches the patient
or the walls of the radiotherapy room. Furthermore, the equipment’s leakage
radiation in all directions must be taken into account. When dimensioning the
shields, the proportion of scattered radiation at an excitation energy of more
than 10 MeV is usually insignificant compared to leakage radiation. However,
the effects of scattered radiation must be taken into account when planning
the access corridor. Table 2 presents scatter factors, and Table 3 presents
tenth value layers for secondary radiation.

Scattering angle  6 MV  10 MV 

30  0.007  0.003 
45  0.0018  0.001 
60  0.0011  0.0005 
90  0.0006  0.0003 
135  0.0004  0.0002 

Table 2. Scatter factors. The scatter factors presented in the table indicate the relationship
between the scattered radiation dose and the in‐field dose when the field size on the surface of
the scattering object is 400 cm2 and the distance between the examined point and the target is
one metre.

With accelerators, the primary source of leakage radiation is the appliance’s

target. If the manufacturer of the radiotherapy equipment has not provided a
specific value, leakage radiation is set to 0.5% of the isocenter dose rate
when dimensioning the shields. The leakage from a modern, high-quality
accelerator, however, can be under 0.05% of the isocenter dose rate.
Therefore, the technical specifications of the equipment should be verified
before the calculations in order to avoid unnecessary over-dimensioning of the
shields. The necessary transmission factor is calculated in the same way as
for primary radiation and corrected with the amount of leakage radiation
(0.005 · DI in Formula 5)

∙
. (5)
∙ , ∙ ∙

Additionally, scattered radiation must be taken into account if the maximum

excitation energy
is below 10 MeV.

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Maximum  Lead  Concrete  Steel  Gravel 

energy [MeV]  TVL1  TVLe  TVL1  TVLe  TVL1  TVLe  TVL1  TVLe 
2  35  40  220  200  75  70  ‐  340 
4  50  55  290  290  90  90  ‐  490 
6  55  55  350  350  100  100  ‐  570 
8  55  55  380  380  105  105  ‐  630 
10  55  55  410  400  105  105  ‐  650 
12  55  55  440  420  105  105  ‐  690 
15  55  55  470  440  110  110  ‐  720 
20  55  55  490  450  110  110  ‐  730 
25  55  55  510  460  110  110  ‐  750 
Table 3. Tenth value layers for secondary radiation [mm].

The transmission factor Bs necessary for protection against scattered radiation

is calculated with the
formula
∙ ∙
. (6)
/ , ∙ ∙ ∙

The distance between the radiation source and the scattering object is r1, and
the distance between the scattering object and the examined point is r2. The
scatter factor a (from Table 2) is determined based on the scattering angle
and energy. A is the area on the scattering object’s surface that is subjected
to direct radiation. The formula uses a factor of 0.04 because the scatter
factor is determined for a field size of 0.04 m2. Additionally, it must be
examined whether the calculated attenuation is also sufficient in terms of the
instantaneous dose rate.

In addition to the dimensioning of shields presented above, the formulas can

be used when evaluating the unintentional exposure of a person in the
radiotherapy room, for example.

Example 2. Assessing a person’s dose in an accident

A maintenance worker was repairing an electric outlet in the radiotherapy

room and the operator of the radiotherapy equipment did not see the
maintenance worker when verifying that the room is empty. The maintenance
worker was approximately three metres away from a 6 MeV beam, whose size
was 20 cm x 20 cm on the surface of a phantom at a 1 m distance. The gantry
angle was 0 degrees (beam was directed straight down). The dose rate from
the equipment’s leakage radiation is 0.1% of the isocenter dose rate. The
maintenance worker activated an emergency switch after ten monitor units
(which was equivalent to a dose of D0 = 0.1 Gy in the isocenter). Estimate the
effective dose to the maintenance worker. Here, 1 Sv/Gy can be used as the
coefficient for conversion from absorbed dose to effective dose.

The dose from the equipment’s leakage radiation is

∙ ∙ 0,001 0,1 ∙ 1 ∙ 0,001

11 .
3
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The scatter factor is determined according to Table 2. Therefore, the dose

from scattered radiation at the maintenance worker’s location (90 degree
angle in relation to the beam) can be estimated as follows:

∙ ∙ /0,04 ∙ 0,1 ∙ 1 ∙ 0,0006/0,04 ∙ 0,04

7 .
∙ 1 3

The effective dose of the maintenance worker, approximately 18 μSv, is

calculated by adding the doses together. Although the dose is clearly under
the recording level, the incident is exceptional and must be reported to STUK.