Design of mini phantom and measurement of cobalt-60 beam data parameters

Low cost mini phantoms were fabricated indigenously with different water equivalent material such as polymethyl methacrylate and Bee's wax of different shapes (with dome top surface and flat top surface). The beam parameters of the Co-60 machine, such as head scatter correction factor (S(h)), phantom scatter correction factor (S(P)), total scatter correction factor (S(C,P)), collimator exchange effect were measured. Output ratio measurements were taken for both mini phantom and water phantom for different square and rectangular field sizes. Normalized output ratios were compared with ESTRO published values and (Storchi and Van Gasteren) S and G data. The percentage of variation between the measured and the literature values is about 0.7%. Collimator exchange effect were measured for water and mini phantom for different field size, were compared with ESTRO value. This was found to be 0.5% and 1.0% respectively. Phantom scatter correction factors were calculated for square and rectangular filed sizes; this was compared with ESTRO values, found to be 0.7% for square and 1.0% for rectangular filed size. It was also noted that there were no appreciable variation observed in ion chamber readings of different materials of mini phantoms for dome and flat surfaces. Mini phantom measurements were done for all types of phantoms and the measured values were compared with the existing data and they were in good agreement with the published values.