ed J R Williams and D I Thwaites
Oxford: Oxford University Press (2000)
332pp, price: £34.50, ISBN: 0-19-262878-X
The second edition of Radiotherapy Physics: in Practice is, like its
predecessor, intended as a practical guide particularly for the trainee
medical physicist. It has been very successful at fulfilling its
intention of being a comprehensive review of the practice of
radiotherapy physics by providing a good introduction to its various
topics, without requiring any extensive physics or mathematics. It is
also a useful text for more experienced medical physicists, dosimetrists
and medical technical officers. Some of the sections would also interest
radiographers and clinical oncologists.
Since the first edition was published in 1993 there have been
significant advances in radiotherapy technology and these have been
adequately covered in the second edition.
A number of chapters concerning the established basis of radiotherapy
physics have remained basically unchanged from the first edition.
The chapter on 'Simulation and imaging for radiation therapy planning'
now includes target definitions relating to ICRU Report 50 and has an
excellent section on the CT simulator and virtual simulation. The
original chapter on external beam treatment planning has been expanded
into three chapters with a separate section dedicated to electron beam
planning. An additional chapter covering the changes in treatment
planning initiated by the advances in technology - multileaf collimators,
electronic portal imagers and dynamic therapy - gives a good practical
background to these topics without the in-depth mathematics
found in
scientific papers. The improvements in CT-based and 3D treatment
planning such as automatic outline and target drawing, beam's eye view,
digitally reconstructed radiographs and dose-volume histograms are also
covered in some detail and are a welcome addition in this second
edition.
Some of the significant changes in dosimetry in the last few years have
also been included in their relevant sections.
The final chapter on 'Quality assurance in radiotherapy physics' is an
excellent review on the important topic of quality assurance management
or quality systems, and how they are related to all the activities in a
radiotherapy physics department which affect the accuracy of radiation
treatment in the clinical oncology department. The structure of the
quality system, how it is implemented in practice and the process of
certification are all explained. The chapter concludes with a
discussion on dosimetry audits.
The book is produced to a high standard throughout with 139
figures,
including many very clear line drawings. This book should be in the
library of radiotherapy physics departments and, at only £34.50
for 332 pages, is certainly affordable. I would recommend it to any
medical physics trainee as a text to provide them with guidance for the
many practical problems in radiotherapy physics, and as a source of
useful references giving further background theory on these topics.