Dosimetry of 24-MV x rays from a linear accelerator

Dosimetric characteristics of a 24-MV photon beam produced by a Varian Clinac 2500 linear accelerator are presented. Particular attention is paid to measurements and applications relating to depth of maximum dose and scatter correction factors. New experimental methods were adopted to investigate scatter factors for field sizes ranging from 5 X 5 to 40 X 40 cm. For the largest field investigated, a 3% phantom scatter factor relative to a 10 X 10 cm field was determined. From the study, clinically useful scatter-phantom ratios were generated. The study also demonstrated that the estimated correction factors for scatter in a medium caused negligible changes (approximately equal to 0.1%) on the percent depth-dose values derived from the measured tissue-phantom ratio (TPR) data. The paper also quantitatively compares results obtained for dosimetric parameters like scatter output, tissue-phantom ratio, and percent depth-dose with those obtained from similar machines used for radiotherapy. Measured data relating to these parameters are expressed by taking a reference depth of 8 g/cm2 in a medium for normalization purposes and its importance discussed. Additional measurements presented in this work include beam quality and collimator effect on dose rate. Phantoms of various sizes and materials and a variety of detectors were used throughout the investigation.