Program Information
Direct Measurement of Magnetic Field Correction Factors, KQB, for Application in Future Codes of Practice for Reference Dosimetry
J Wolthaus1*, B van Asselen2 , S Woodings3 , T van Soest4 , J Kok5 , L de Prez6 , B Jansen7 , J de Pooter8 , B Raaymakers9 , (1,2,3,4,5,9) University Medical Center Utrecht, Utrecht, The Netherlands(6,7,8) VSL, Delft, The Netherlands
Presentations
TH-CD-BRA-3 (Thursday, August 4, 2016) 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM Room: Ballroom A
Purpose:
With an MR-linac, radiation is delivered in the presence of a magnetic field. Modifications in the codes of practice (CoPs) for reference dosimetry are required to incorporate the effect of the magnetic field.
Methods:
In most CoPs the absorbed dose is determined using the well-known kQ formalism as the product of the calibration coefficient, the corrected electrometer reading and kQ, to account for the difference in beam quality. To keep a similar formalism a single correction factor is introduced which replaces kQ, and which corrects for beam quality and B-field, kQ,B. In this study we propose a method to determine kQ,B under reference conditions in the MRLinac without using a primary standard, as the product of:
- the ratio between detector readings without and with B-field (kB),
- the ratio between doses in the point of measurement with and without B-field (rho),
- kQ in the absence of the B-field in the MRLinac beam (kQmrl0,Q0),
The ratio of the readings, which covers the change in detector reading due to the different electron trajectories in the detector, was measured with a waterproof ionization chamber (IBA-FC65g) in a water phantom in the MRLinac without and with B-field. The change in dose-to-water in the point of measurement due to the B-field was determined with a Monte Carlo based TPS.
Results:
For the presented approach, the measured ratio of readings is 0.956, the calculated ratio of doses in the point of measurement is 0.995. Based on TPR20,10 measurements kQ was calculated as 0.989 using NCS-18. This yields a value of 0.9408 for kQ,B.
Conclusion:
The presented approach to determine kQ,B agrees with a method based on primary standards within 0.4% with an uncertainty of 1% (1 std.uncert). It differs from a similar approach using a PMMA-phantom and an NE2571 chamber with 1.3%.
Contact Email: