Feasibility of Anthropomorphic Head Phantom Design Using DLP 3D Printing for Dosimetry

Despite the increasing expansion of radiation therapy and diagnostic radiation centers in the country to treat and increase the quality level of treatment of various diseases, we are still facing challenges such as dosimetry, calibration and quality control of radiation therapy and diagnostic radiation devices. In this sense, it is important to prepare and make a suitable phantom. Phantoms are used in dosimetry due to their density and effective atomic number similar to body tissues. Among the phantoms prepared for dosimetry purposes is the Rando phantom. The main purpose of this study is to determine the feasibility of the materials for making the anthropomorphic head phantom (AHP) head and neck phantom using a Digital Light Processing (DLP) 3D printer, as well as the design of the whole human body phantom with the lowest cost. The dimensions of different parts of the phantom were extracted from CT-Scan images and were designed using SolidWork, Meshmixer and Ultimaker Cura. In this study, the use of Thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) resin equivalent to soft tissue and bone tissue were investigated. Considering that the density of soft tissue and skull bone is 1 gr⁄〖cm〗^3 and 1.6-1.7 gr⁄〖cm〗^3 , the density of these two resins is 1 gr⁄〖cm〗^3 and 1.6 gr⁄〖cm〗^3 . In order to verify the accuracy of our developped phanom a Monte Carlo based simulation assessment was done using GEANT4 code. Final results show that there is good agreement between our phantom in comparison with other common available phantoms.