Can the AAPM Task Group 21 protocol lead to optimum ion chamber designs?

The recently published AAPM Task Group 21 protocol for high-energy dosimetry is complicated in that it requires the physicist to obtain the values of about a dozen different physical variables by looking them up in tables or graphs. This should be compared with the procedure of earlier protocols using the concept of a single multiplier C lambda. We have investigated how the physical principles outlined in the improved AAPM protocol could be utilized for the redesign of the therapy-level ion chambers in such a way that one can reduce the number of factors that need to be looked up in tables or graphs for the calibration of high-energy teletherapy photon beams. In our analysis presented in this paper we found that one such design could be for an ion chamber having a wall acrylic or Bakelite of a thickness not exceeding 0.1 g/cm2 and having an inner diameter of 6 mm, and used in conjunction with a cobalt-60 buildup cap of thickness 0.35 g/cm2 made of acrylic, Bakelite, or Tufnol. If a chamber of such a design is used in a water phantom, the dosimetry practically reduces to the simplicity of the former protocols of depending on a single value of energy-dependent multiplier to be obtained from a table. With the above design parameters, it becomes possible to eliminate the explicit need to incorporate the factors Pwall, Prepl, Awall, beta wall, and the variable alpha, representing the fraction of ionization due to electrons from the wall material of the chamber.