Dose linearity and monitor unit stability of a G4 type cyberknife robotic stereotactic radiosurgery system

Dose linearity studies on conventional linear accelerators show a linearity error at low monitor units (MUs). The purpose of this study was to establish the dose linearity and MU stability characteristics of a cyberknife (Accuray Inc., USA) stereotactic radiosurgery system. Measurements were done at a depth of 5 cm in a stereotactic dose verification phantom with a source to surface distance of 75 cm in a Generation 4 (G4) type cyberknife system. All the 12 fixed-type collimators starting from 5 to 60 mm were used for the dose linearity study. The dose linearity was examined in small (1-10), medium (15-100) and large (125-1000) MU ranges. The MU stability test was performed with 60 mm collimator for 10 MU and 20 MU with different combinations. The maximum dose linearity error of -38.8% was observed for 1 MU with 5 mm collimator. Dose linearity error in the small MU range was considerably higher than in the medium and large MU ranges. The maximum error in the medium range was -2.4%. In the large MU range, the linearity error varied between -0.7% and 1.2%. The maximum deviation in the MU stability was -3.03%.