title: Dosimetric effects on the penumbra region of irregular multi-leaf collimated fields.
abstract: The dosimetric effect in the penumbra region for multi-leaf collimator (MLC) fields was studied using a Varian 21 EX linear accelerator. The beam profiles in the cross-line and in-line directions for MLC field configurations of varying lengths of protruded leaves, which are adjacent (on one or both sides) to the beam profile axes, were measured using a 6 MV photon beam. It was found that there is a decrease of dose in the 'edge' region of the protruded leaves' side in the cross-line profile, when the protruded leaves (upper and/or lower side) were moved out from 0.5 cm to 3 cm towards the central beam axis. When both the upper and lower portions of leaves were moved out forming a gap for the profile, the dose at the 'edge' region in the cross-line direction was decreased by about 20% and 6%, with the protruded length of leaves being 0.5 cm and 1 cm, respectively. The penumbra width of the cross-line profile increased with the protruded length of leaves when the gap width was 0.5 cm, and it was independent of the length when the width was increased larger than 1 cm. The Pinnacle treatment planning system could calculate the decrease of dose observed experimentally in the cross-line profile, but an underestimation of about 30% was found when using version 6.2b, which did not consider the leaf rounded end and tongue-and-groove effect. While the newly commissioned 7.4f, which considered the two aforementioned effects, made an improvement, it still underestimated the dose by 25% compared to the measurement. For the in-line profiles, both versions estimated the penumbra width well.
authors.affiliation: Medical Physics Department, Grand River Regional Cancer Center, Grand River Hospital, PO Box 9056, 835 King Street West, Kitchener, Ontario N2G 1G3, Canada.
authors.forename: James C L
authors.initials: JC
authors.lastname: Chow
authors.forename: Brent
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Wettlaufer
authors.forename: Runqing
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Jiang
mesh_terms: D006801:Humans; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000532:radiotherapy*; D010315:Particle Accelerators; D019047:Phantoms, Imaging; D017785:Photons; D011874:Radiometry; D011879:Radiotherapy Dosage; D011880:Radiotherapy Planning, Computer-Assisted; D020266:Radiotherapy, Conformal / Q000379:methods*; D050397:Radiotherapy, Intensity-Modulated / Q000379:methods*; D012542:Scattering, Radiation; D012984:Software