The use of high-density concretes in radiotherapy treatment room design.

With the modernization of radiotherapic centers, medical linear accelerators are largely replacing (60)Co teletherapy units. In many cases, the same vault housing the (60)Co teletherapy unit is reused for the linear accelerator and, when space is at a premium, high-density concrete (3.0-5.0 g/cm(3)) is employed to provide shielding against the primary, scatter and leakage radiation. This work presents a study based on Monte Carlo simulations of transmission of some clinical photon spectra (of 4-10 MV accelerators) through some types of high-density concretes, normally used in the construction of radiotherapy bunkers. From the simulations, the initial and subsequent tenth-value layers (TVL) for these materials, taking into account realistic clinical photon spectra, are presented, for primary radiation.