X-ray CT dose in normoxic polyacrylamide gel dosimetry

This study reports on the effects of x-ray CT dose in CT imaged normoxic polyacrylamide (nPAG) gel dosimeters. The investigation is partitioned into three sections. First, the CT dose absorbed in nPAG is quantified under a range of typical gel CT imaging protocols. It is found that the maximum absorbed CT dose occurs for volumetric imaging and is in the range of 4.6 +/- 0.2 cGy/image. This does scales linearly with image averaging. Second, using Raman spectroscopy, the response of nPAG to CT imaging photon energies (i.e., 120-140 kVp) is established and compared to the well known dose response of nPAG exposed to 6 MV photons. It is found that nPAG exhibits a weaker response (per unit dose) to 140-kVp incident photons as compared to 6 MV incident photons (slopes m6 mv = -0.0374 +/- 0.0006 Gy(-1) and m140 kVp = -0.016 +/- 0.001 Gy(-1)). Finally, using the above data, an induced change in CT number (deltaN(CT)) is calculated for nPAG imaged using a range of gel imaging protocols. It is found that under typical imaging protocols (120-140 kVp, 200 mAs, approximately 16-32 image averages) a deltaN(CT) < 0.2 H is induced in active nPAG dosimeters. This deltaN(CT) is below the current limit of detectability of CT nPAG polymer gel dosimetry. Under expanded imaging protocols (e.g., very high number of image averages) an induced deltaN(CT) of approximately 0.5 H is possible. In these situations the additional polymerization occurring in nPAG due to the imaging process may need to be accounted for.