• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.195-203
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• 1999

It is difficult to determine dosimetric characteristics for small field photon beams since such small fields do not achieve complete lateral electronic equilibrium and have steep dose gradients. Dosimetric characteristics of small field 4, 6, and 10 MeV photon beams have been measured in water with a diamond detector and compared to measurements using small volume cylindrical and plane parallel ionization chambers. Percent depth dose (PDD) and beam profiles for 6 and 10 MeV photon beams were measured with diamond detector and cylindrical ion chamber for small fields ranging from $1{\times}1\;to\;4{\times}4cm^2$. Total scatter factors($S_{c,p}$) for 4, 6, and 10 MeV photon beams were measured with diamond detector, cylindrical and plane parallel ion chambers for small fields ranging from $1{\times}1\;to\;4{\times}4cm^2$. The $S_{c,p}$ factors obtained with three detectors for 4, 6, and 10 MeV photon beams agreed well ($\pm1.2%$) for field sizes greater than $2{\times}2,\;2.5{\times}2.5,\;and\;3{\times}3\;cm^2$, respectively. For smaller field sizes, the cylindrical and plane parallel ionization chambers measure a smaller $S_{c,p}$ factor, as a result of the steep dose gradients across their sensitive volumes. The PDD values obtained with diamond detector and cylindrical ionization chamber for 6 and 10MeV photon beams agreed well ($\pm1.5%$) for field sizes greater than $4{\times}4\;cm^2$. For smaller field sizes, diamond detector produced a depth-dose curve which had a significantly shallower falloff than that obtained from the measurements of relative depth-dose with a cylindrical ionization chamber. For the measurements of beam profiles, a distortion in terms of broadened penumbra was observed with a cylindrical ionization chamber since diamond detector exhibited higher spatial resolution. The diamond detector with small sensitive volume, near water equivalent, and high spatial resolution is suitable detector compared to ionization chambers for the measurements of small field photon beams.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Radiology
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• v.6 no.5
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• pp.343-349
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• 2012

Intensity Modulated Radiotherapy (IMRT) is increasing its use recently due to its benefits of minimizing the dose on surrounding normal organs and being able to target a high dose specifically to the tumor. The study aims to measure and evaluate the dose distribution according to its dynamic changes in Mapcheck. In order to verify the dose distribution by EDW angle($10^{\circ}$,$15^{\circ}$,$20^{\circ}$,$25^{\circ}$,$30^{\circ}$,$45^{\circ}$,$60^{\circ}$), field size (asymmetric field) and depth changes (1.5 cm, 5.0 cm) using IMRT in Clinac ix, a solid phantom was placed on the Mapcheck and 100MU was exposed by 6 MV, 10MV X-ray. Using a 6MV, 10MV energy, the percentage depth dose according to a dynamic changes at a maximum dose depth (1.5 cm) and at 5.0 cm depth showed the value difference of maximum 0.6%, less than 1%, which was calculated by a treatment program device considering the maximum dose depth at the center as 100%, the percentage depth dose was in the range between 2.4% and 7.2%. Also, the maximum value difference of a percentage depth dose was 4.1% in Y2-OUT direction, and 1.7% in Y1-IN direction. When treating a patient using a wedge, it is considered that using an enhanced dynamic wedge is effective to reduce the scattered dose which induces unnecessary dose to the surroundings. In particular, when treating a patient at clinic, a treatment must be performed considering that the wedge dose in a toe direction is higher than the dose in a heel direction.

• Journal of radiological science and technology
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• v.39 no.4
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• pp.571-575
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• 2016

Monte Carlo simulations are widely used as the most accurate technique for dose calculation in radiation therapy. In this paper, the GATE6(Geant4 Application for Tomographic Emission ver.6) code was employed to calculate the dosimetric performance of the photon beams from a linear accelerator(LINAC). The treatment head of a Varian 21EX Clinac was modeled including the major geometric structures within the beam path such as a target, a primary collimator, a flattening filter, a ion chamber, and jaws. The 6 MV photon spectra were characterized in a standard $10{\times}10cm^2$ field at 100 cm source-to-surface distance(SSD) and subsequent dose estimations were made in a water phantom. The measurements of percentage depth dose and dose profiles were performed with 3D water phantom and the simulated data was compared to measured reference data. The simulated results agreed very well with the measured data. It has been found that the GATE6 code is an effective tool for dose optimization in radiotherapy applications.

• Radiation Oncology Journal
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.115-124
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• 1990

The characteristics of 23 MV photon beam have been presented with respect to clinical parameters of central axis depth dose, tissue-maxi mum ratios, scatter-maximum ratios, surface dose and scatter correction factors. The nominal accelerating potential was found to be $18.5\pm0.5$ MV on the central axis. The half-value layer (HVL) of this photon beam was measured with narrow beam geometry from central axis, and it has been showed the thickness of $24.5\;g/cm^2$. The tissue-maximum ratio values have been determined from measured percentage depth dose data. In our experimental dosimetry, the surface dose of maximum showed only $9.6\%$ of maximum dose at $10\times10\;cm^2$, 100 cm SSD, without blocking tray in. The TMR'S of $0\times0$ field size have been determined to get average $2.3\%$ uncertainties from three different methodis; are zero effective attenuation coefficient, non-ilnear least square fit of TMR's data and effective linear attenuation coefficient from the HVL of 23 MV photon beams of dual energy linear accelerator.

• Journal of radiological science and technology
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• v.41 no.3
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• pp.201-207
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• 2018

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the performance of a "stealth chamber" as a novel reference chamber for measuring percentage depth dose (PDD) and profile of 6, 8 and 10 MV photon energies. The PDD curves and dose profiles with fields ranging from $3{\times}3$ to $25{\times}25cm^2$ were acquired from measurements by using the stealth chamber and CC 13 chamber as reference chamber. All measurements were performed with Varian VitalBeam linear accelerator. In order to assess the performance of stealth chamber, PDD curves and profiles measured with stealth chamber were compared with measurement data using CC13 chamber. For PPDs measured with both chambers, the dosimetric parameters such as $d_{max}$ (depth of maximum dose), $D_{50}$ (PDD at 50 mm depth), and $D_{100}$ (PDD at 100 mm depth) were analyzed. Moreover, root mean square error (RMSE) values for profiles at $d_{max}$ and 100 mm depth were evaluated. The measured PDDs and profiles between the stealth chamber and CC13 chamber as reference detector had almost comparable. For PDDs, the evaluated dosimetric parameters were observed small difference (<1%) for all energies and field sizes, except for $d_{max}$ less than 2 mm. In addition, the difference of RMSEs for profiles at $d_{max}$ and 100 mm depth was similar for both chambers. This study confirmed that the use of stealth chamber for measuring commission beam data is a feasible as reference chamber for fields ranging from $3{\times}3$ to $20{\times}20cm^2$. Furthermore, it has an advantage with respect to measurement of the small fields (less than $3{\times}3cm^2$ field) although not performed in this study.

• Radiation Oncology Journal
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.71-79
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• 1998

Purpose : The objective of this study is to introduce our installation of a non-commercial 3D Planning system, Plunc and confirm it's clinical applicability in various treatment situations. Materials and Methods : We obtained source codes of Plunc, offered by University of North Carolina and installed them on a Pentium Pro 200MHz (128MB RAM, Millenium VGA) with Linux operating system. To examine accuracy of dose distributions calculated by Plunc, we input beam data of 6MV Photon of our linear accelerator(Siemens MXE 6740) including tissue-maximum ratio, scatter-maximum ratio, attenuation coefficients and shapes of wedge filters. After then, we compared values of dose distributions(Percent depth dose; PDD, dose profiles with and without wedge filters, oblique incident beam, and dose distributions under air-gap) calculated by Plunc with measured values. Results : Plunc operated in almost real time except spending about 10 seconds in full volume dose distribution and dose-volume histogram(DVH) on the PC described above. As compared with measurements for irradiations of 90-cm 550 and 10-cm depth isocenter, the PDD curves calculated by Plunc did not exceed $1\%$ of inaccuracies except buildup region. For dose profiles with and without wedge filter, the calculated ones are accurate within $2\%$ except low-dose region outside irradiations where Plunc showed $5\%$ of dose reduction. For the oblique incident beam, it showed a good agreement except low dose region below $30\%$ of isocenter dose. In the case of dose distribution under air-gap, there was $5\%$ errors of the central-axis dose. Conclusion : By comparing photon dose calculations using the Plunc with measurements, we confirmed that Plunc showed acceptable accuracies about $2-5\%$ in typical treatment situations which was comparable to commercial planning systems using correction-based a1gorithms. Plunc does not have a function for electron beam planning up to the present. However, it is possible to implement electron dose calculation modules or more accurate photon dose calculation into the Plunc system. Plunc is shown to be useful to clear many limitations of 2D planning systems in clinics where a commercial 3D planning system is not available.

• Journal of radiological science and technology
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• v.40 no.4
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• pp.621-626
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• 2017

In this paper, an optical dosimetric system for radiation dose measurement is developed and characterized for 100 MeV proton beams in KOMAC(Korea Multi-Purpose Accelerator Complex). The system consists of 10 wt% Ultima GoldTM liquid organic scintillator in the ethanol, a camera lens(50 mm / f1.8), and a high sensitivity CMOS(complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor) camera (ASI120MM, ZWO Co.). The FOV(field of view) of the system is designed to be 150 mm at a distance of 2 m. This system showed sufficient linearity in the range of 1~40 Gy for the 100 MeV proton beams in KOMAC. We also successfully got the percentage depth dose and the isodose curves of the 100 MeV proton beams from the captured images. Because the solvent is not a human tissue equivalent material, we can not directly measure the absorbed dose of the human body. Through this study, we have established the optical dosimetric procedure and propose a new volume dose assessment method.

• Progress in Medical Physics
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.185-192
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• 1998

It is necessarily to evaluate the energy of X-ray emitted from linear accelerator in order to determine the accurate absorbed dose. The method of direct measurement for x-ray energy is very difficult and impractical. Therefore the method of using beam quality index is generally used. Several dosimetry protocols recommend the use of quality indices such as depth of dose maximum at radiation central axis, dose gradient, and dose level. The linear accelerator manufactures follow the recommendation as dosimetry protocols. The study was performed for us to select the most suitable parameter among the Quality indices as described above. For photon beams of 4, 6, 10, 15, and 21 MV nominal energies produced by four kinds of accelerators(Mitsubishi, Scanditronix, Siemens, Varian) in eleven institutions, We evaluated the x-ray energies obtained by the Quality indices as recommended by several dosimetry protocols and manufactures. Results showed that there were energy spreads according to the same accelerators and Quality indices even though nominal energies were same. It appeared that the percent depth dose at 10 cm (D$_{10}$(%)) gave the smallest deviation and spread of energies. As energies increased, the energy deviation increased for all the quality indices. It is desirable for the use of unified quality index to compare the evaluation of beam quality at different institutions.

• Progress in Medical Physics
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.193-200
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• 2015

The aim of this study is to present commissioning results of the ViewRay system. We verified safety functions of the ViewRay system. For imaging system, we acquired signal to noise ratio (SNR) and image uniformity. In addition, we checked spatial integrity of the image. Couch movement accuracy and coincidence of isocenters (radiation therapy system, imaging system and virtual isocneter) was verified. Accuracy of MLC positioing was checked. We performed reference dosimetry according to American Association of Physicists in Medicine (AAPM) Task Group 51 (TG-51) in water phantom for head 1 and 3. The deviations between measurements and calculation of percent depth dose (PDD) and output factor were evaluated. Finally, we performed gamma evaluations with a total of 8 IMRT plans as an end-to-end (E2E) test of the system. Every safety system of ViewRay operated properly. The values of SNR and Uniformity met the tolerance level. Every point within 10 cm and 17.5 cm radii about the isocenter showed deviations less than 1 mm and 2 mm, respectively. The average couch movement errors in transverse (x), longitudinal (y) and vertical (z) directions were 0.2 mm, 0.1 mm and 0.2 mm, respectively. The deviations between radiation isocenter and virtual isocenter in x, y and z directions were 0 mm, 0 mm and 0.3 mm, respectively. Those between virtual isocenter and imaging isocenter were 0.6 mm, 0.5 mm and 0.2 mm, respectively. The average MLC positioning errors were less than 0.6 mm. The deviations of output, PDDs between mesured vs. BJR supplement 25, PDDs between measured and calculated and output factors of each head were less than 0.5%, 1%, 1% and 2%, respectively. For E2E test, average gamma passing rate with 3%/3 mm criterion was $99.9%{\pm}0.1%$.

• Radiation Oncology Journal
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.195-202
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• 1998

Purpose : In order to obtain basic data for treatment plan in radiosurgery, we measured small fields of 6 MV X-rays and compared the measured data with our Monte Carlo simulations for the small fields. Materials and Methods : The small fields of 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0 cm in diameter were used in this study. Percentage depth dose (PDD) and beam Profiles of those fields were measured and calculated. A small semiconductor detector, water phantoms, and a remote control system were used for the measurement Monte Carlo simulations were Performed using the EGS4 code with the input data prepared for the energy distribution of 6 MV X-rays, beam divergence, circular fields and the geometry of the water phantoms. Results : In the case of PDD values, the calculated values were lower than the measured values for all fields and depths, with the differences being 0.3 to 5.7% at the depths of 20 to 20.0 cm and 0.0 to 8.9% at the surface regions. As a result of the analysis of beam profiles for all field sizes at a depth of loom in water phantom, the measured 90% dose widths were in good agreement with the calculated values, however, the calculated Penumbra radii were 0.1 cm shorter than measured values. Conclusion : The measured PDDs and beam profiles agreement with the Monte Carlo calculations approximately. However, it is different when it comes to calculations in the area of phantom surface and penumbra because the Monte Carlo calculations were performed under the simplified geometries. Therefore, we have to study how to include the actual geometries and more precise data for the field area in Monte Carlo calculations. The Monte Carlo calculations will be used as a useful tool for the very complicated conditions in measurement and verification.