In recent years there has been a growing interest in all forms of rotational therapy, and many different types of therapy machines designed for this kind of treatment have become available. To the medical radiation physicist, the dosimetry of rotation therapy has presented a number of interesting problems, and much useful work has been published on the basic date of dose distribution and dosage calculation. The setting dose for ARC therapy were obtained by computer calculation and measurement with cylindrical phantom. Authors compared computer calculation with measured value. And in ARC therapy, the region of maximum dose in shifted from the tumor center. The extent of shift was analyzed by isodose distribution for ARC therapy techniques.
Particle Accelerators*

The beam characteristics and dosimetric measurements of the 10 MV X-ray beam from a Mevatron KD linear accelerator are examined. The Percent Depth Dose (PDD) table and the Tissue Maximum Ratio (TMR) table are taken from measurement as a function of the field size and the depth. The calculated TMR table from PDD table is compared with those from measurement. Other beam characteristics such as output factor, beam profile (including flatness, symmetry and penumbra), wedge, and the variation of Dmax are presented.
Particle Accelerators*

PURPOSE: For the purpose of quality assurance of self-developed stereotactic radiosurgery system, a multi-purpose phantom was fabricated, and accuracy of radiation dose distribution during radiosurgery was measured using this phantom. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A farmer chamber, a 0.125 cc ion chamber and a diode detector were used for the dosimetry. Six MV x-ray from a linear accelerator (CL2100C, Varian) with stereotactic radiosurgery technique (Green Knife) was used, and multi-purpose phantom was attached to a stereotactic frame (Fisher type). Dosimetry was done by combinations of locations of the detectors in the phantom, fixed or arc beams, gantry angles (20 ~100 ), and size of the circular tertiary collimators (inner diameters of 10 degrees~40 degrees mm). RESULTS: The measurement error was less than 0.5% by Farmer chamber, 0.5% for 0.125 cc ion chamber, and less than 2% for diode detector for the fixed beam, single arc beam, and 5-arc beam setup. CONCLUSION: We confirmed the accuracy of dose distribution with the radiosurgery system developed in our institute and the data from this study would be able to be effectively used for the improvement of quality assurance of stereotactic radiosurgery or fractionated stereotactic radiotherapy system.
Particle Accelerators ; Radiosurgery* ; Radiotherapy

One of the most important task in commissioning intensity modulated radiotherapy (IMRT) into a clinic is the characterization of dosimetry performance under small monitor unit delivery conditions. In this study, method of evaluating dose monitor linearity, beam flatness and symmetry, and MLC positioning accuracy using a diode array is investigated. Siemens Primus linear accelerator (LA) with 6 and 10 MV x-rays was used to deliver radiation and the characteristics were measured using a multi array diodes. Monitor unit stabilities were measured for both x-ray energies. The dose linearity errors for the 6 MV x-ray were 2.1, 3.4, 6.9, 8.6, and 15.4 % when 20 MU, 10 MU, 5 MU, 4 MU, and 2 MU was delivered, respectively. Greater errors were observed for 10 MV x-rays with a maximum of 22% when 2 MU was delivered. These errors were corrected by adjusting D1_C0 values and reduced to less than 2% in all cases. The beam flatness and symmetry were appropriate without any correction. The picket fence test performed using diode array and film measurement showed similar results. The use of diode array is a convenient method in characterizing beam stability, symmetry and flatness, and positioning accuracy of MLC for IMRT commissioning. In addition, adjustment of D1-C0 value must be performed when a Siemens LA is used for IMRT because factory value usually gives unacceptable beam stability error when the MU/segment is smaller than 20.
Organothiophosphorus Compounds ; Particle Accelerators

As radiation is irradiated from various directions in intensity modulated radiation therapy (IMRT), longer treatment time than conventional treatment method is taken. In case of the patients who have problem to keep same posture for long time because of pain and injury, reducing treatment time through increased dose rate is a way for effective treatment. This study measured and found out the variation of dose and dose distribution in accordance with dose rate variation. IMRT treatment plan was set up to investigate from 5 directions - 0degrees, 72degrees, 144degrees, 216degrees, 288degrees - using ECLIPSE system (Varian, SomaVision 6.5, USA). To confirm dose and dose rate in accordance with dose rate variation, dose rate was set up as 100, 300, 500 MU/min, and dose and dose distribution were measured using ionization chamber (PTW, TN31014) and film dosimeter (EDR2, Kodak). At this time, film dosimeter was inserted into acrylic phantom, then installed to run parallel with beam's irradiating direction, 21EX-S (Varian, USA) was utilized as linear accelerator for irradiation. The measured film dosimeter was analyzed using VXR-16 (Vidar System Corporation) to confirm dose distribution.
Humans ; Particle Accelerators ; Posture

A method to get a size of the radiation isocenter of linear accelerators using star-shot images was presented and a computer program was developed to automate the method. Accuracy of the method was verified. The developed program was used to measure sizes of the radiation isocenters for a Clinac 21EX (Varian, USA) using data of quality assurance (QA) performed from June 2008 to December 2010. To calculated the size of radiation isocenter, positions of two points on each central ray of the star-shot image were found and the equation of the central ray was determined using the positions of two points. Using the equations of central rays the radius of the minimum circle intersecting all the central rays, which is one half of the size of radiation isocenter, was calculated. The program measured X-intercepts and y-intercepts of the central rays within errors of 0.084 mm and sizes of radiation isocenters within 0.053 mm. All the errors were less than the spatial resolution of star-shot images 0.085 mm. The radiation isocenter sizes of Clinac 21EX were 0.33+/-0.27 mm, 0.71+/-0.36 mm, 0.50+/-0.16 mm for collimator, gantry and couch respectively. During the measurement period all the measured sizes were less than 2.0 mm and within tolerance. The developed program could calculate the size of radiation isocenters and it would be helpful to routine QA.
Particle Accelerators ; Radius ; Software

The stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS) describes a method of delivering a high dose of radiation to a small target volume in the brain, generally in a single fraction, while the dose delivered to the surrounding normal tissue should be minimized. To perform automatic plan of the SRS, a new method of multi-isocenter/shot linear accelerator (linac) and gamma knife (GK) radiosurgery treatment plan was developed, based on a physical lattice structure in target. The optimal radiosurgical plan had been constructed by many beam parameters in a linear accelerator or gamma knife-based radiation therapy. In this work, an isocenter/shot was modeled as a sphere, which is equal to the circular collimator/helmet hole size because the dimension of the 50% isodose level in the dose profile is similar to its size. In a computer-aided system, it accomplished first an automatic arrangement of multi-isocenter/shot considering two parameters such as positions and collimator/helmet sizes for each isocenter/shot. Simultaneously, an irregularly shaped target was approximated by cubic structures through computation of voxel units. The treatment planning method by the technique was evaluated as a dose distribution by dose volume histograms, dose conformity, and dose homogeneity to targets. For irregularly shaped targets, the new method performed optimal multi-isocenter packing, and it only took a few seconds in a computer-aided system. The targets were included in a more than 50% isodose curve. The dose conformity was ordinarily acceptable levels and the dose homogeneity was always less than 2.0, satisfying for various targets referred to Radiation Therapy Oncology Group (RTOG) SRS criteria. In conclusion, this approach by physical lattice structure could be a useful radiosurgical plan without restrictions in the various tumor shapes and the different modality techniques such as linac and GK for SRS.
Brain ; Particle Accelerators ; Radiosurgery*

Experimental measurements of dose characteristics with pentagonal applicator at nominal energy of 4, 6, 9, 12 and 15 MeV electron beam were performed for intraoperative radiotherapy (IORT) in ML-15MDX linear accelerator. This paper presents the percent depth dose, surface dose, beam flatness and output factors of using the IORT applicator in different electron beam energy. The output factor showed as a 24 percent higher in IORT applicator than that of reference 10x10 cm? applicator. The surface dose of using the IORT applicator showed 7.7 and 2.7 percent higher than that of reference field in 4 and 15 MeV electron beam, respectively. In our experiments, the variation of percent depth dose was very small but the output factor and flatness at 0.5 cm depth have showed a large value in IORT applicator.
Particle Accelerators ; Radiotherapy

An important problem in radiosurgery is the utilization of the proper beam parameters, to which dose shape is sensitive. Streotactic radiosurgery techniques for a linear accelerator typically, use circular radiation fields with multiple arcs to produce an spherical radiation distribution. Target volumes are irregular in shape for a certain case, and spherical distributions can irradiate normal tissues to high dose as well as the target region. The current improvement to dose distribution utilizes treating multiple isocenters or weighting various arcs to change treatment volume shape. In this paper another premising study relies upon dynamically shaping the treatment beam to fit the beam's eye view of the target. This conformal irradiation technique was evaluated by means of visual three dimensional dose distribution, dose volume histograms to the target volume and surrounding normal brain. It is shown that using even less arcs than multiple isocenter irradiation technique, the conformal therapy yields comparable dose gradients and superior homogeneity of dose within the target volume.
Brain ; Particle Accelerators ; Radiosurgery*

In this study, Geant4 based Monte Carlo simulations were carried out for medical linear accelerator. Modified Medical Linac2 toolkit was used for calculation. The energy spectrum, most probable energy and the photon mean energy compared with the published results using the EGS4 code. The results well agreed with published results. The calculated results of photon fluence, energy fluence and mean energy according to the radius from the centre of the beam were analyzed. Monte Carlo simulation using Medical Linac2 code is considered to be useful for analysis of medical linear accelerator. Because the calculated results varies depending on Physics List model for same head structure. It it important to choose the right model for research purpose. Monte Carlo simulation using GEANT4 Medical Linac2 is a valuable for any novice to adopt this code to the study related to 6 MV photon fluence from medical linear accelerator.
Head ; Particle Accelerators ; Radius