Effects of ionization chamber construction on dose measurements in a heterogeneity

Traditionally, measurements have been made in heterogeneous phantoms to determine the factors which should be applied to dose calculations, when calculating a dose to a heterogeneous medium. Almost all measurements have relied on relatively thin-walled ion chambers, with no attempt to match ion chamber wall material to the measuring medium. The recent AAPM dosimetry protocol has established that a mismatch between ion chamber wall and phantom material can have an effect on dose measurement. To investigate the affect of this mismatch of ion chamber wall material to phantom material, two parallel-plate ion chambers were constructed. One ion chamber from solid water, for measurements in a solid water phantom and the other from plastic lung material, for measurements in a plastic lung material phantom. Correction factors measured by matching ion chamber to media were compared to correction factors measured by using a thin-walled cavity ion chamber with no regard for matching wall and media for cobalt-60, 6-, 10- and 20-MV photon beams. The results demonstrated that the matching of ion chamber to measuring media can be ignored, provided that a small, approximately tissue-equivalent, thin-walled ion chamber is used for measuring the correction factors.