title: Characteristics of gated treatment using an optical surface imaging and gating system on an Elekta linac.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Knowing the technical characteristics of gated radiotherapy equipment is crucial for ensuring precise and accurate treatment when using techniques such as Deep-Inspiration Breath-Hold and gating under free breathing. With one of the first installations of the novel surface imaging system Catalyst™ (C-RAD AB, Sweden) in connection with an Elekta Synergy linear accelerator (Elekta AB, Sweden) via the Elekta Response Interface, characteristics like dose delivery accuracy and time delay were investigated prior to clinical implementation of gated treatments in our institution.
  
  
  METHODS
  In this study a moving phantom was used to simulate respiratory motion which was registered by the Catalyst™ system. The gating level was set manually. Within this gating window a trigger signal is automatically sent to the linac initiating treatment delivery. Dose measurements of gated linac treatment beams with different gating levels were recorded with a static 2D-Diode Array (MapCheck2, Sun Nuclear Co., USA) and compared to ungated reference measurements for different field sizes. In addition, the time delay of gated treatment beams was measured using radiographic film.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The difference in dose delivery between gated and ungated treatment decreases with the size of the chosen gating level. For clinically relevant gating levels of about 30%, the differences in dose delivery accuracy remain below 1%. In comparison with other system configurations in literature, the beam-on time delay shows a large deviation of 851 ms ± 100 ms.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  When performing gated treatment, especially for free-breathing gating, factors as time delay and dose delivery have to be evaluated regularly in terms of a quality assurance process. Once these parameters are known they can be accounted and compensated for, e.g. by adjusting the pre-selected gating level or the internal target volume margins and by using prediction algorithms for breathing curves. The usage of prediction algorithms becomes inevitable with the high beam-on time delay which is reported here.
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiation Oncology, LMU University Hospital, D-81377, Munich, Germany. Philipp.Freislederer@med.uni-muenchen.de.
authors.forename: Philipp
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Freislederer
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiation Oncology, LMU University Hospital, D-81377, Munich, Germany. Michael.Reiner@med.uni-muenchen.de.
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Reiner
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiation Oncology, LMU University Hospital, D-81377, Munich, Germany. Winfried.Hoischen@med.uni-muenchen.de.
authors.forename: Winfried
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Hoischen
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiation Oncology, LMU University Hospital, D-81377, Munich, Germany. Anton.Quanz@med.uni-muenchen.de.
authors.forename: Anton
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Quanz
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiation Oncology, LMU University Hospital, D-81377, Munich, Germany. Christian.Heinz@med.uni-muenchen.de.
authors.forename: Christian
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Heinz
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiation Oncology, LMU University Hospital, D-81377, Munich, Germany. Franziska.Walter@med.uni-muenchen.de.
authors.forename: Franziska
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Walter
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiation Oncology, LMU University Hospital, D-81377, Munich, Germany. Claus.Belka@med.uni-muenchen.de.
authors.forename: Claus
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Belka
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiation Oncology, LMU University Hospital, D-81377, Munich, Germany. Matthias.Soehn@med.uni-muenchen.de.
authors.forename: Matthias
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Soehn
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D006801:Humans; D009038:Motion; D010315:Particle Accelerators / Q000295:instrumentation*; D019047:Phantoms, Imaging; D011879:Radiotherapy Dosage; D011880:Radiotherapy Planning, Computer-Assisted / Q000379:methods*; D050397:Radiotherapy, Intensity-Modulated / Q000379:methods*; D012119:Respiration; D055425:Respiratory-Gated Imaging Techniques / Q000379:methods*; D012984:Software