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Development and characterization of a tissue equivalent plastic scintillator based dosimetry system
M P Petric1, J L Robar, B G Clark
1Department of Medical Physics, BC Cancer Agency, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada V5Z 4E6.
Medical Physics
|February 21, 2006
Summary
A novel plastic scintillator system offers rapid, digital dose verification for advanced radiation therapy. This tissue-equivalent system provides accurate measurements, improving quality assurance in intensity modulated radiation therapy.
Area of Science:
- Medical Physics
- Radiation Oncology
- Imaging Technology
Background:
- Advanced radiation therapy techniques like intensity modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) require precise quality assurance.
- Current dose verification methods are often labor-intensive and time-consuming.
Purpose of the Study:
- To develop and characterize a prototype digital dose verification system using a plastic scintillator.
- To provide a faster and more efficient alternative for quality assurance in radiation therapy.
Main Methods:
- A tissue-equivalent plastic scintillator screen in a water phantom captured scintillation light.
- A charge-coupled device (CCD) camera and computer system digitized the measurements.
- Optical artifacts were corrected using a microlouvre collimator and image deconvolution.
Main Results:
- The system demonstrated linear output response (r2 > 0.99) for static fields.
- Effective pixel size was 0.53 mm/pixel with 5.6% signal uniformity.
- Long-term stability was 1.7% over 6 months, agreeing within 8% with film dosimetry for dynamic fields.
Conclusions:
- The prototype scintillator system offers a promising fast, digital, and tissue-equivalent method for dose verification.
- This technology can enhance quality assurance efficiency in modern radiation therapy.
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