Computed tomography dose measurements with radiochromic films and a flatbed scanner

Gafchromic XR-QA films were developed for patient dosimetry in diagnostic radiology. A possible application of these films is the measurement of doses in computed tomography. In this study a method to evaluate the CTDI using Gafchromic XR-QA film and a flatbed scanner was developed and tested. Film samples were cut to dimensions of 6 x 170 mm2 in order to have an integration area similar to that of a pencil ionization chamber, with the possibility of changing the integration length. Prior to exposing these films to a computed tomography beam, the angular dependence of the film dose response was investigated by exposing film strips to a static x-ray beam at different angles in the range 0 degrees-180 degrees. A difference of 49% was found between the response with the axis beam parallel to the film surface (90 degrees) and with the axis beam perpendicular (0 degrees and 180 degrees). Integrating over a 360 degrees exposure like the one in computed tomography, a difference of less than 2% was estimated, which is comparable with the measurement error obtainable with XR-QA film. A calibration with a CT beam in the scout mode was performed and film strips were then exposed to single axial scans and to helical scans both in air and in phantoms. Two different types of flatbed scanners were used to read the film samples, a Microtek ScanMaker 9800XL scanner and an Epson Expression 10000 XL scanner, and the accuracy of the results were compared. For beam collimations above 10 mm differences between CTDI measured by film and CTDI measured by ionization chamber below 9% were found for the Epson scanner, with an average estimated error at 1 sigma level of 5%. For the Microtek scanner and for the same film samples, differences below 11% with an average error at 1 sigma level of 8% were founded. The 1 sigma uncertainty of the measured CTDI was provided by the method for each measurement, and it was shown that about the 95% of the differences between the CTDI measurements with radiochromic films and with the ionization chamber were below the estimated 2 sigma uncertainty, for both scanners. After an accurate calibration procedure and the consideration of the uncertainty associated with the measurement, Gafchromic XR-QA films can be used to evaluate the CTDI.