Program Information
Validation of An In-Vivo Proton Range Verification Method for Reducing the Risk of Permanent Alopecia in the Treatment of Pediatric Medulloblastoma
G Lucconi1,4*, E Bentefour2 , S Deepak3 , G Janssens2 , K Weaver4 , M Moteabbed4 , H-M Lu4 , (1) Department of Medical Physics, S.Orsola-Malpighi University Hospital, Bologna, Italy, (2) Advanced Technology Group, Ion Beam Applications (IBA), Louvain la Neuve, Belgium, (3) Department of Physics, Central University of Karnataka, Karnataka 585367, India, (4) Department of Radiation Oncology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA
Presentations
SU-F-T-218 (Sunday, July 31, 2016) 3:00 PM - 6:00 PM Room: Exhibit Hall
Purpose: The clinical commissioning of a workflow for pre-treatment range verification/adjustment for the head treatment of pediatric medulloblastoma patients, including dose monitoring during treatment.
Methods: An array of Si-diodes (DIODES Incorporated) is placed on the patient skin on the opposite side to the beam entrance. A “scout” SOBP beam, with a longer beam range to cover the diodes in its plateau, is delivered; the measured signal is analyzed and the extracted water equivalent path lengths (WEPL) are compared to the expected values, revealing if a range correction is needed. Diodes stay in place during treatment to measure dose. The workflow was tested in solid water and head phantoms and validated against independent WEPL measurements. Both measured WEPL and skin doses were compared to computed values from the TPS (XiO); a Markus chamber was used for reference dose measurements.
Results: The WEPL accuracy of the method was verified by comparing it with the dose extinction method. It resulted, for both solid water and head phantom, in the sub-millimeter range, with a deviation less than 1% to the value extracted from the TPS. The accuracy of dose measurements in the fall-off part of the dose profile was validated against the Markus chamber. The entire range verification workflow was successfully tested for the mock-treatment of head phantom with the standard delivery of 90 cGy per field per fraction. The WEPL measurement revealed no need for range correction. The dose measurements agreed to better than 4% with the prescription dose. The robustness of the method and workflow, including detector array, hardware set and software functions, was successfully stress-tested with multiple repetitions.
Conclusion: The performance of the in-vivo range verification system and related workflow meet the clinical requirements in terms of the needed WEPL accuracy for pretreatment range verification with acceptable dose to the patient.
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