Industrial application
Radiotherapy and imaging couch tops
Also known as carbon fibre couch top, patient couch top
The patient support surface of radiotherapy and imaging tables, which radiation must pass through. Carbon fibre composite sandwich panels are the material of choice, at a small cost in beam attenuation.
Classification
- application category
- MEDICAL_DEVICE
How this record is known
- 2
- Settled consensus
- Cited as the accepted position of the discipline.
2 of 2 claims on this page cite at least one registered source. Counts describe how each statement is known, not how likely it is to be true.
What Lithoen records
Each claim states how it is known and cites its evidence.
EstablishedCarbon fibre sandwich panels: rigid, light and radio-translucent.
A radiotherapy couch top has to support the patient rigidly while letting treatment beams and imaging radiation through; carbon fibre is described as the material of choice because it is strong, stiff and light and more radio-translucent than hardboard, copolyester or PMMA, the top usually being a sandwich panel of two carbon fibre plies separated by a filler layer, and newer tops for image-guided treatment omit the metal side bars of earlier designs.
Evidence support: Supported by the cited evidence · one source
Evidence: F. 2012 · Peer-reviewed
EstablishedA few per cent beam attenuation and a large skin-dose increase; include the couch in planning.
Even a carbon fibre couch top attenuates the beam and raises the dose to the skin: for one imaging couch top, treatment planning systems predicted 2–9.5 per cent attenuation and a skin-dose increase of about 46–90 per cent, and the authors recommend including the couch in treatment planning whenever beams pass through it.
- precision note: Figures for one carbon fibre imaging couch top in two treatment planning systems; they are not values for carbon fibre couch tops in general.
Evidence support: Supported by the cited evidence · one source
Evidence: F. 2012 · Peer-reviewed
Record last updated 2026-10-30. Corrections follow the published corrections policy; superseded claims are retained, never silently edited.