Program Information
An EPID-Based Method for Testing Absolute Leaf Position for MLC Without Backup Jaws
S Hancock1*, M Whitaker2 , (1) Southeast Missouri Hospital, Cape Girardeau, MO, (2) Radiological Imaging Technology, Colorado Springs, CO
Presentations
SU-E-T-33 Sunday 3:00PM - 6:00PM Room: Exhibit HallPurpose:
Methods in common use for MLC leaf position QA are limited to measurements relative to an arbitrary reference position. The authors previously presented an EPID-based method for efficiently testing accuracy of leaf position relative to the mechanical isocenter for MLC with backup jaws. The purpose of this work is to extend that method to the general case of MLC without backup jaws.
Methods:
A pair of collimator walkout images is used to determine the location of the mechanical isocenter relative to the center of one field using a parameter called X-offset. The method allows for shift of the imager panel to cover subsets of MLC leaves within the limited field of view of the imager. For a shifted panel position, an image of three beam strips defined by a subset of MLC leaves allows determination of the position of each leaf relative to the isocenter. The location of the isocenter is determined by applying X-offset to an image of a single rectangular field obtained at that panel position. The method can also be used to test backup jaws instead of MLC leaves. A software tool was developed to efficiently analyze the images.
Results:
The software tool reports leaf position and deviation from nominal position, and provides visual displays to facilitate rapid qualitative interpretation. Test results using this method agree well with results using the previous method requiring backup jaws. Test results have been successfully used to recalibrate one model MLC (Elekta MLCi2â„¢). Work in progress includes extension of the software tool to other MLC models, and quantification of reproducibility of the measurements.
Conclusion:
This work successfully demonstrates a method to efficiently and accurately measure MLC leaf position, or backup jaw position, relative to the mechanical isocenter of the collimator.
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