Abstract

Medical linear accelerators (linacs) are the most frequently applied radiation therapy machines in the locoregional treatment of cancers by producing either high-energy electron or photon beams. However, with high-energy photons (>8 MeV), interaction of these photons with different high-Z nuclei of materials in components of the linac head unavoidably generates neutrons. On the other hand, the average energy of these generated neutrons has almost the highest radiation-weighting factor. Therefore, the produced neutrons should not be neglected. There are various tools for the measurement of neutron dose/fluence generated in a megavoltage linac, including thermoluminescent dosimeters, solid-state nuclear track detectors, bubble detectors, activation foils, Bonner sphere systems, and ionization chamber pairs. In this review article, each of the above-mentioned dosimetric methods will be described in detail.