Evaluation of Radiation Doses Inside a Phantom of Mammography Utilizing Compton Spectrometry.

Absorbed dose in breast cannot be measured directly in mammography equipments. Therefore, methods based on Compton spectrometry are alternatives to evaluate dose distributions in a simulator of human breast material. In this work, a CdTe detector was used for the Compton spectrometry measurements of radiation scattered at approximately 90° by a PMMA cylinder. To reach the objective, the necessary reconstruction of primary spectra (in units of photon fluence) has been made using Klein-Nishina and Compton theories, followed by a determination of air kerma and, finally, of absorbed dose values in the breast phantom. Incident X-ray spectra and depth-dose distributions in a BR-12 phantom were determined. Results presented here were obtained for mammography range (28 to 35 kV) and show good agreement with literature data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]