The Octavius1500 2D ion chamber array and its associated phantoms: dosimetric characterization of a new prototype

The purpose of the study is to characterize the prototype of the new Octavius1500 (PTW, Freiburg, Germany) 2D ion chamber array, covering its use in different phantom setups, from the most basic solid water sandwich setup to the more complex cylindrical Octavius® 4D (Oct4D) (PTW) phantom/detector combination. The new detector houses nearly twice the amount of ion chambers as its predecessors (Seven29 and Octavius729), thereby tackling one of the most important limitations of ion chamber (or diode) arrays, namely the limited detector density. The 0.06 cm3 cubic ion chambers are now arranged in a checkerboard pattern, leaving no lines (neither longitudinally nor laterally) without detectors.

All measurements were performed on a dual energy (6 MV and 18 MV) iX Clinac (Varian Medical Systems, Palo Alto, CA) and all calculations were done in the Eclipse treatment planning system (Varian) with the Anisotropic Analytical Algorithm. First, the basic characteristics of the 2D array, such as measurement stability, dose rate dependence and dose linearity were investigated in the solid water sandwich setup. Second, the directional dependence was assessed to allow the evaluation of the new Octavius2D phantom (Oct2D(1500)) for planar verification measurements of composite plans. Third, measurements were performed in the Oct4D phantom to evaluate the impact of the increased detector density on the accuracy of the volumetric dose reconstruction.

While showing equally good dose linearity and dose rate independence, the Octavius1500 outperforms the previous models because of its instantaneous measurement stability and its twofold active area coverage. Orthogonal field-by-field measurements immediately benefit from the increased detector density. The 3.9 cm wide compensation cavity in the new Oct2D(1500) phantom prototype adequately corrects for directional dependence from the rear, resulting in good agreement within the target dose. Discrepancies may arise towards the sides of the array because of uncompensated lateral beam incidence. The beneficial impact of the detector density is most prominent in the Oct4D system, for which the average pass rate (PR) is now nearly 100% (99.31±0.37) when using gamma criteria of 2%G,2 mm (10% dose threshold). In search of gamma analysis criteria that are not too lenient to detect possibly relevant deviations, the authors conclude that for our radiotherapy environment, the authors choose to adopt 3%L,3 mm PR97% (threshold 10%) criteria for the Oct2D(1500)/Octavius1500 system and 2%L,3 mm PR97% (threshold 10%) for the Oct4D/Octavius1500 system. These are first line pass/check criteria and plans that fail are not necessarily rejected, but submitted to a more detailed investigation.

When irradiated from the front, the Octavius1500 array has two main advantages over its 729 predecessors: its instantaneous measurement stability and--most importantly-its twofold detector density. In the Oct2D1500 phantom, these advantages are counterbalanced by the more pronounced directional dependence. The measurement-based 3D dose reconstruction in the Oct4D system, however, benefits considerably from the higher detector density in the checkerboard panel design.