Measurement of percentage dose at the surface for a 6MV photon beam

Abstract

Aim

To evaluate if a radiochromic film (RF) Gafchromic EBT3 is suitable for surface dose measurements of radiotherapy treatments performed with a 6MV linear accelerator. Two aspects of RF were analyzed, beam energy dependence and surface dose determination.

Background

The measurements done at the surface or near the radiation source are done without charged electronic equilibrium and also have contribution of electron contamination. The detectors used for these measurements should not alter the dose to the target. To counteract these dosimetric problems it is proposed to do the measurements with radiochromic films which are thin detectors and have tissue equivalent properties.

Materials and Methods

The measurements were done using a Novalis linear accelerator (LINAC) with nominal energy of 6MV. To determine the surface dose, the total scatter factors (TSF) of three different field sizes were measured in a water phantom at 5cm depth. Energy dependence of EBT3 was studied at three different depths, using a solid water phantom. The surface measurements were done with the RF for the same field sizes of the TSF measurements. The value of the percentage depth dose was calculated normalizing the doses measured in the RF with the LINAC output, at 5cm depth, and the TSF.

Results

The radiochromic films showed almost energy independence, the differences between the curves are 1.7% and 1.8% for the 1.5cm and 10cm depth, respectively. The percentage depth doses values at the surface measured for the 10cm×10cm, 5cm×5cm and 1cm×1cm were 26.1±1.3%, 21.3±2.4% and 20.2±2.6%, respectively.

Conclusions

The RF-EBT3 seems to be a detector suitable for measurements of the dose at the surface. This suggests that RF-EBT3 films might be good candidates as detectors for in vivo dosimetry.