Program Information

Small Field Jaw/MLC Reference Data

J Kerns

J Kerns*, P Alvarez , D Followill , J Lowenstein , A Molineu , P Summers , S Kry , UT MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX

Presentations

SU-E-T-471 Sunday 3:00PM - 6:00PM Room: Exhibit Hall

Purpose: In recent years the need for small field data of MLCs has increased due to the use of intensity-modulated radiation (IMRT), but moreover the use of stereotactic body radiation (SBRT) has increased, which uses not simply small field sizes, but small jaw and field sizes together. Having reference data for these small fields that is reliable would be invaluable to the physics community. Our study has gathered these values and the data distributions from the Radiological Physics Center’s (RPC) site visits between 1990 and the present.
Methods: For all measurements, the RPC used a 25 x 25 x 25cm water phantom placed at 100cm SSD. All measurements were made with an Exradin A16 cylindrical ion chamber at an effective depth of 10 cm. A total of 42 Varian machine measurements were used to compose the data for a 6 MV beam and 5 TrueBeam 6 MV flattening filter free (FFF) beams were used for FFF data.
Results: Jaw/MLC fields were measured for both 6 MV and 6 MF FFF beams with the jaws and MLCs both at the following field sizes: 6x6, 4x4, 3x3, and 2x2cm. Measurements were normalized to the 10x10 field readings (defined by the jaws and MLC). Spread in the data was minimal and demonstrates a high level of accuracy of acquired data.
Conclusion: Small field Jaw/MLC reference data for Varian 6MV and 6 MV FFF beams has been analyzed and presented here, composed of the aggregation of numerous RPC site visits. Obtaining reliable small field data remains difficult, however the RPC has collected high fidelity small field Jaw/MLC data. The data are presented as a reference along with their distributions, in such a way that the physicist can act based upon their own desired agreement with the reference data.



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