Evaluation of delivered monitor unit accuracy of gated step-and-shoot IMRT using a two-dimensional detector array.
OBJECTIVE
To overcome the problem of organ motion in intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT), gated IMRT is often used for the treatment of lung cancer. In this study, the authors investigated the accuracy of the delivered monitor units (MUs) from each segment during gated IMRT using a two-dimensional detector array for user-specific verification purpose.


METHODS
The authors planned a 6 MV photon, seven-port step-and-shoot lung IMRT delivery. The respiration signals for gated IMRT delivery were obtained from the one-dimensional moving phantom using the real-time position management (RPM) system (Varian Medical Systems, Palo Alto, CA). The beams were delivered using a Clinac iX (Varian Medical Systems, Palo Alto, CA) with the Millennium 120 MLC. The MatriXX (IBA Dosimetry GmbH, Germany) was validated through consistency and reproducibility tests as well as comparison with measurements from a Farmer-type ion chamber. The authors delivered beams with varying dose rates and duty cycles and analyzed the MatriXX data to evaluate MU delivery accuracy.


RESULTS
There was quite good agreement between the planned segment MUs and the MUs computed from the MatriXX within +/- 2% error. The beam-on times computed from the MatriXX data were almost identical for all cases, and they matched well with the RPM beam-on and beam-off signals. A slight difference was observed between them, but it was less than 40 ms. The gated IMRT delivery demonstrated an MU delivery accuracy that was equivalent to ungated IMRT, and the delivered MUs with a gating signal agreed with the planned MUs within +/- 0.5 MU regardless of dose rate and duty cycle.


CONCLUSIONS
The authors can conclude that gated IMRT is able to deliver an accurate dose to a patient during a procedure. The authors believe that the methodology and results can be transferred to other vendors' devices, particularly those that do not provide MLC log data for a verification purpose.
Cheong
Kwang-Ho
KH
Department of Radiation Oncology, Hallym University College of Medicine, Seoul 431070, Korea.
Kang
Sei-Kwon
SK
Lee
MeYeon
M
Kim
Su Ssan
SS
Park
SoAh
S
Hwang
Tae-Jin
TJ
Kim
Kyoung Ju
KJ
Oh
Do Hoon
DH
Bae
Hoonsik
H
Suh
Tae-Suk
TS
D004867:Equipment Design; D019544:Equipment Failure Analysis; D011874:Radiometry; D011879:Radiotherapy Dosage; D020266:Radiotherapy, Conformal / Q000295:instrumentation*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D015656:Respiratory Mechanics; D055425:Respiratory-Gated Imaging Techniques / Q000295:instrumentation*; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D014159:Transducers