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Dose verification in clinical IMRT prostate incidents
Panagiotis Sandilos1, Angelos Angelopoulos, Panagiotis Baras
1Nuclear and Particle Physics Section, Physics Department, University of Athens, Panepistimioupolis, Ilisia, 157 71 Athens, Greece.
Purpose:
In view of the need for dose-validation procedures on each individual intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) plan, dose-verification measurements by film, by ionization chamber, and by polymer gel-MRI dosimetry were performed for a prostate-treatment plan configuration. Treatment planning system (TPS) calculations were evaluated against dose measurements.
Methods And Materials:
Intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) treatments were planned on a commercial TPS. Kodak EDR-2 films were used for the verification of two-dimensional (2D) dose distributions at 1 coronal and 5 axial planes in a water-equivalent phantom. Full three-dimensional (3D) dose distributions were measured by use of a novel polymer gel formulation and a 3D magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) readout technique. Calculations were compared against measurements by means of isocontour maps, gamma-index maps (3% dose difference, 3-mm distance to agreement) and dose-volume histograms.
Results:
A good agreement was found between film measurements and TPS predictions for points within the 60% isocontour, for all the examined plans (gamma-index <1 for 96% of pixels). Three-dimensional dose distributions obtained with the polymer gel-MRI method were adequately matched with corresponding TPS calculations, for measurements in a gel phantom covering the planning-target volume (PTV).
Conclusions:
Measured 2D and 3D dose distributions suggest that, for the investigated prostate IMRT plan configuration, TPS calculations provide clinically acceptable accuracy.