Program Information
Methods to Simulate and Measure the Attenuation for Modeling a Couch Top with Rails for FFF Treatment Delivery On the Varian Edge Linac
M Gulam1*, S Gardner1 , B Zhao1 , K Snyder1 , K Song1 , H Li1 , W Kearns2 , J Gordon1 , N Wen1 , I Chetty1 , (1) Henry Ford Health System, Detroit, MI, (2) Varian Medical Systems, Clemmons, NC
Presentations
SU-F-BRE-10 Sunday 4:00PM - 6:00PM Room: Ballroom EPurpose: To measure attenuation for modelling of the KVue Couchtop for 6X and 10X FFF SRS/SBRT treatment
Methods: Treatment planning simulation studies were done using 6X FFF beams to estimate the dosimetric impact of KVue couchtops (including the Q-Fix IGRT [carbon fiber] and Calypso [nonconductive Kevlar material]) with a structure model obtained from a research workstation (Eclipse, advanced planning interface (API) v13). Prior to installation on the Varian Edge linac, the couchtop along with (Kevlar) rails were CT scanned with the rails at various positions. An additional scan with the couchtop 15cm above the CT table top was obtained with 20cm solid water to facilitate precised/indexed data acquisition. Measurements for attenuation were obtained for field sizes of 2, 4 and 10 cm² at 42 gantry angles including 6 pairs of opposing fields and other angles for oblique delivery where the beams traversed the couchtop and or rails. The delivery was fully automated with xml scripts running in developer mode. The results were then used to determine an accurate structure model for AAA (Eclipse v11) planning of IMRT and RapidArc delivery.
Results: The planning simulation relative dose attenuation for oblique entry was not significantly different than the Exact IGRT or BrainLab iBeam couch except that the rails added 6% additional attenuation. The relative attenuation measurements for PA, PA (rails: inner position), oblique, oblique (rails: outer position), oblique (rails: inner position) were: -2.0%, -2.5%, -15.6%, -2.5%, -5.0% for 6X FFF and -1.4%, -1.5%, -12.2%, -2.5%, -5.0% for 10X FFF with slight decrease in attenuation versus field size. A Couch structure model (with HU values) was developed. Calculation compared to measurement showed good agreement except for oblique (rails: outer position) where differences approached a magnitude of 6%.
Conclusion: A model of the couch structures has been developed accounting for attenuation for FFF beams.
Funding Support, Disclosures, and Conflict of Interest: This research was supported in part by a grant from Varian Medical Systems, Palo Alto, CA
Contact Email: