Program Information
A Comparison of SSD and Field Size Dependence of Output for Megavoltage Electron Beams for Different Manufacturers
A Dimofte*, T Zhu , Univ Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA
Presentations
SU-E-T-7 Sunday 3:00PM - 6:00PM Room: Exhibit HallPurpose:
The purpose of this study was to compare the electron beam in-air output factor (H) for Varian and Siemens accelerators.
Methods:
Measurements were performed among four accelerators: Varian CL2300ix, Varian TrueBeam, Siemens Oncor, and Siemens Primus. The nominal electron energy measured ranges from 6 to 21 MeV. Measurements were made in air using a diode detector for different square cone sizes (6 â‚‹ 25cm) with circular field inserts with radius r between 1 cm and 8 cm and for different SSD (100 â‚‹ 120 cm). H is defined as
H(r,SSD)â¼ X(r,SSD)/X(open,SSD) ,
where X is the charge measured by the diode detector without buildup cap in air.
Results:
For the same nominal energy, cone size, radius of circular cutout, and SSD, H agreed within a maximum deviation of 2.3% and standard deviation of 1% among Varian accelerators but can be as much as 8.7% different between the Varian and the Siemens accelerators. H is a function of electron energy and cutout radius only when the field radius for H measured at different SSD is renormalized as r = r0*5/(SSD₋95), where r₀ is the physical field radius at the end of the cone. The radius dependence of H for five cone sizes (6x6, 10x10, 15x15, 20x20 and 25x25cm²) and three SSD(100, 110 and 120cm) for three energies was measured.
Conclusion:
The in air output factor (H) measured for the same manufacturer can be treated as identical to within 1.1% for Varian machines and to within 1.6% for Siemens machines, but the difference in H measured for the different manufacturers is large enough (>2%) to require machine specific data set.
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