A design for a dual assembly multileaf collimator

A multileaf collimator for radiation therapy has been designed that splits each leaf bank into two vertically displaced levels with each level consisting of alternate leaves and leaf spaces. The leaves in the upper level shield the spaces in the lower level. Each level can move laterally, in the direction perpendicular to leaf motion by one leaf width. Following lateral movement of one level, the leaves align with the other level and radiation is transmitted through the collimator as multiple slit fields in a grid pattern. This transmission can be used to form an image of the external anatomy and would enable double-exposure portal images to be acquired much more rapidly than at present. These could potentially be acquired during the treatment delivery. The radiation profiles transmitted for image formation through the collimator design were investigated. Individual and grid pattern slit field profiles formed by tungsten and lead alloy collimators were measured with varying slit width, source-collimator distance, collimator-detector distance, and collimation thickness. The slit width was found to have the major influence on the transmitted profiles. As the slit width decreases the profiles become broader than the geometric slit projection resulting in increasing overlap of adjacent profiles. The overlap results in a modulated image of the external anatomy for small slit widths, rather than a sampled or "grid" image for larger widths. The shielding of this design was found to be adequate provided the leaf faces of the adjacent vertically displaced leaves are at least aligned, therefore an overlap or tongue and groove is not required.