title: Pencil beam approach for correcting the energy dependence artifact in film dosimetry for IMRT verification.
abstract: The higher sensitivity to low-energy scattered photons of radiographic film compared to water can lead to significant dosimetric error when the beam quality varies significantly within a field. Correcting for this artifact will provide greater accuracy for intensity modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) verification dosimetry. A procedure is developed for correction of the film energy-dependent response by creating a pencil beam kernel within our treatment planning system to model the film response specifically. Film kernels are obtained from EGSnrc Monte Carlo simulations of the dose distribution from a 1 mm diameter narrow beam in a model of the film placed at six depths from 1.5 to 40 cm in polystyrene and solid water phantoms. Kernels for different area phantoms (50 x 50 cm2 and 25 x 25 cm2 polystyrene and 30 x 30 cm2 solid water) are produced. The Monte Carlo calculated kernel is experimentally verified with film, ion chamber and thermoluminescent dosimetry (TLD) measurements in polystyrene irradiated by a narrow beam. The kernel is then used in convolution calculations to, predict the film response in open and IMRT fields. A 6 MV photon beam and Kodak XV2 film in a polystyrene phantom are selected to test the method as they are often used in practice and can result in large energy-dependent artifacts. The difference in dose distributions calculated with the film kernel and the water kernel is subtracted from film measurements to obtain a practically film artifact free IMRT dose distribution for the Kodak XV2 film. For the points with dose exceeding 5 cGy (11% of the peak dose) in a large modulated field and a film measurement inside a large polystyrene phantom at depth of 10 cm, the correction reduces the fraction of pixels for which the film dose deviates from dose to water by more than 5% of the mean film dose from 44% to 6%.
authors.affiliation: Department of Medical Physics, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, 1275 York Avenue, New York, New York 10021, USA. kirova@mskcc.org
authors.forename: Assen S
authors.initials: AS
authors.lastname: Kirov
authors.forename: Gregory
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Caravelli
authors.forename: Asa
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Palm
authors.forename: Chen
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Chui
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: LoSasso
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D016477:Artifacts; D004307:Dose-Response Relationship, Radiation; D005373:Film Dosimetry / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D009010:Monte Carlo Method; D019047:Phantoms, Imaging; D017785:Photons; D011137:Polystyrenes / Q000737:chemistry; D011874:Radiometry; D011880:Radiotherapy Planning, Computer-Assisted / Q000379:methods*; D050397:Radiotherapy, Intensity-Modulated / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D013819:Thermoluminescent Dosimetry / Q000379:methods; D014867:Water
chemical_list: D011137:Polystyrenes; D014867:Water