title: An experimental study of the dose response of polymer gel dosimeters imaged with x-ray computed tomography.
abstract: Changes in the linear attenuation coefficient of polymer gel dosimeters post-irradiation enable the imaging of dose distributions by x-ray computed tomography (CT). Various compositions of polymer gel dosimeters manufactured from acrylamide (AA), and N,N'-methylene-bis-acrylamide (BIS) comonomers and gelatin or agarose gelling agents were investigated. This work shows that increasing the comonomer concentration increases the CT-dose sensitivity of the polymer gel dosimeter. This can be further increased by replacing gelatin with agarose. Varying the gelatin concentration however does not significantly change the CT-dose sensitivity. Among the compositions studied, dose resolution (D(delta)95%) was found to be optimal for polymer gel dosimeters comprising 5% gelatin, 3% AA, 3% BIS and 89% water.
authors.affiliation: Centre for Medical, Health and Environmental Physics, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia.
authors.forename: J V
authors.initials: JV
authors.lastname: Trapp
authors.forename: S A
authors.initials: SA
authors.lastname: Bäck
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Lepage
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Michael
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Baldock
mesh_terms: D020106:Acrylamide / Q000737:chemistry*; D000178:Acrylamides / Q000737:chemistry*; D004305:Dose-Response Relationship, Drug; D004307:Dose-Response Relationship, Radiation; D005780:Gelatin / Q000737:chemistry; D019047:Phantoms, Imaging; D011108:Polymers / Q000737:chemistry*; D011874:Radiometry / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000379:methods*; D014057:Tomography, X-Ray Computed / Q000379:methods*
chemical_list: D000178:Acrylamides; D011108:Polymers; D020106:Acrylamide; D005780:Gelatin; C021221:N,N'-methylenebisacrylamide