• Radiation Oncology Journal
• /
• v.22 no.1
• /
• pp.69-75
• /
• 2004

Purpose : A new fiduciary plate and orientation marker have been devised to assist the quality assurance (QA) procedures for port films in radiation therapy department. The plate is used in conjunction with the film/cassette combination during weekly QA procedures, at Seoul National University Hospital (SNUH), in order to verify treatment fields in high radiation therapy. Materials and Methods : A new fiduciary plate was fabricated using an acrylic plate, cerrobend, standard blocking tray and mercury. The acrylic plate had the dimension of $1{\times}25{\times}25$ cm, with two fiduciary markers. The plate was rigidly attached onto the standard blocking tray, thus making it easier to set the fiduciary plate to the center on the radiation field on the linear accelerator. The plate had two 2-mm vertical and horizontal lines, with the minor scales in 2-cm steps. The orientation marker was a small mercury filled disk, which was inserted into the plate. Results : The geometrical structure of the lines in the plate makes it easier to correlate two different images between the simulation and port films. The marker clearly indicated the orientation of the film, for example, the anterior, posterior, left, right and various oblique orientations, without the placement of a conventional orientation marker. Also, the new orientation marker could easily be applied to the simulator by placing the small orientation marker onto the image intensifier or in front of the film/cassette holder. Conclusions : The new fiduciary plate appears to be useful in verifying the treatment fields, and the new orientation marker makes the film orientation simple, which is expected to lower the block fabrication errors.