Program Information
Independent Dose Calculation in FFF Modulated Fields with Pencil Beam Kernels Obtained by Deconvolution
J Azcona1*, J Burguete2 , (1) Department of Radiation Physics, Clinica Universidad de Navarra, (2) Universidad de Navarra, Pamplona, Navarra
Presentations
SU-E-T-209 Sunday 3:00PM - 6:00PM Room: Exhibit HallPurpose: To obtain the pencil beam kernels that characterize a megavoltage photon beam generated in a FFF linac by experimental measurements, and to apply them for dose calculation in modulated fields.
Methods: Several Kodak EDR2 radiographic films were irradiated with a 10 MV FFF photon beam from a Varian True Beam (Varian Medical Systems, Palo Alto, CA) linac, at the depths of 5, 10, 15, and 20cm in polystyrene (RW3 water equivalent phantom, PTW Freiburg, Germany). The irradiation field was a 50 mm diameter circular field, collimated with a lead block. Measured dose leads to the kernel characterization, assuming that the energy fluence exiting the linac head and further collimated is originated on a point source. The three-dimensional kernel was obtained by deconvolution at each depth using the Hankel transform. A correction on the low dose part of the kernel was performed to reproduce accurately the experimental output factors. The kernels were used to calculate modulated dose distributions in six modulated fields and compared through the gamma index to their absolute dose measured by film in the RW3 phantom.
Results: The resulting kernels properly characterize the global beam penumbra. The output factor-based correction was carried out adding the amount of signal necessary to reproduce the experimental output factor in steps of 2mm, starting at a radius of 4mm. There the kernel signal was in all cases below 10% of its maximum value. With this correction, the number of points that pass the gamma index criteria (3%, 3mm) in the modulated fields for all cases are at least 99.6% of the total number of points.
Conclusion: A system for independent dose calculations in modulated fields from FFF beams has been developed. Pencil beam kernels were obtained and their ability to accurately calculate dose in homogeneous media was demonstrated.
Funding Support, Disclosures, and Conflict of Interest: JDA acknowledges Prof. Lei Xing at Stanford University for financial support through National Institute of Health grants 1R21 CA153587 and 1R01 CA133474. JB acknowledges the Spanish Ministerio de Educacion y Ciencia Project FIS2011-24642.
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