Accurate patient dosimetry of kilovoltage cone-beam CT in radiation therapy

The increased utilization of x-ray imaging in image-guided radiotherapy has dramatically improved the radiation treatment and the lives of cancer patients. Daily imaging procedures, such as cone-beam computed tomography (CBCT), for patient setup may significantly increase the dose to the patient's normal tissues. This study investigates the dosimetry from a kilovoltage (kV) CBCT for real patient geometries. Monte Carlo simulations were used to study the kV beams from a Varian on-board imager integrated into the Trilogy accelerator. The Monte Carlo calculated results were benchmarked against measurements and good agreement was obtained. The authors developed a novel method to calibrate Monte Carlo simulated beams with measurements using an ionization chamber in which the air-kerma calibration factors are obtained from an Accredited Dosimetry Calibration Laboratory. The authors have introduced a new Monte Carlo calibration factor, fMCcal, which is determined from the calibration procedure. The accuracy of the new method was validated by experiment. When a Monte Carlo simulated beam has been calibrated, the simulated beam can be used to accurately predict absolute dose distributions in the irradiated media. Using this method the authors calculated dose distributions to patient anatomies from a typical CBCT acquisition for different treatment sites, such as head and neck, lung, and pelvis. Their results have shown that, from a typical head and neck CBCT, doses to soft tissues, such as eye, spinal cord, and brain can be up to 8, 6, and 5 cGy, respectively. The dose to the bone, due to the photoelectric effect, can be as much as 25 cGy, about three times the dose to the soft tissue. The study provides detailed information on the additional doses to the normal tissues of a patient from a typical kV CBCT acquisition. The methodology of the Monte Carlo beam calibration developed and introduced in this study allows the user to calculate both relative and absolute absorbed doses.