Program Information
Perturbation Corrections for Alanine Dosimeters in Different Phantom Materials in High-Energy Photon Beams
P von Voigts-Rhetz1*, M Anton2 , D Czarnecki1 , K Zink1,3, (1) Institute of Medical Physics and Radiation Protection (IMPS), Giessen, Germany, (2) Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt, Braunschweig, Germany, (3) Germany and Department of Radiotherapy and Radiooncology, University Medical Center Giessen-Marburg, Marburg, Germany
Presentations
SU-E-T-608 (Sunday, July 12, 2015) 3:00 PM - 6:00 PM Room: Exhibit Hall
Purpose:
Alanine dosimeters are often used for in-vivo dosimetry purposes in radiation therapy. In a Monte Carlo study the influence of 20 different surrounding/phantom materials for alanine dosimeters was investigated. The investigations were performed in high-energy photon beams, covering the whole range from 60Co up to 25 MV-X. The aim of the study is the introduction of a perturbation correction kenv for alanine dosimeters accounting for the environmental material.
Methods:
The influence of different surrounding materials on the response of alanine dosimeters was investigated with Monte Carlo simulations using the EGSnrc code. The photon source was adapted with BEAMnrc to a 60Co unit and an Elekta (Enom=6, 10, 25 MV-X) linear accelerator.
Different tissue-equivalent materials ranging from cortical bone to lung were investigated. In addition to available phantom materials, some material compositions were taken and scaled to different electron densities. The depth of the alanine detectors within the different phantom materials corresponds to 5 cm depth in water, i.e. the depth is scaled according to the electron density (ne/ne,w) of the corresponding phantom material. The dose was scored within the detector volume once for an alanine/paraffin mixture and once for a liquid water voxel. The relative response, the ratio of the absorbed dose to alanine to the absorbed dose to water, was calculated and compared to the corresponding ratio under reference conditions.
Results:
For each beam quality the relative response r and the correction factor for the environment kenv was calculated.
kenv=0.9991+0.0049 *((ne/ne,w)-0.7659)3
Conclusion:
A perturbation correction factor kenv accounting for the phantom environment has been introduced. The response of the alanine dosimeter can be considered independent of the surrounding material for relative electron densities (ne/ne,w) between 1 and 1.4. For denser materials such as bone or much less dense surroundings such as lung, a small correction would be appropriate.
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