Program Information
The Development of Custom, Low-Cost, Anthropomorphic Phantoms Constructed Via Additive Manufacturing
J Pruett*, L Muller , S Ahmad , D Johnson , Oklahoma Univ. Health Science Ctr., Oklahoma City, OK
Presentations
SU-I-GPD-T-220 (Sunday, July 30, 2017) 3:00 PM - 6:00 PM Room: Exhibit Hall
Purpose: As advanced treatment planning system algorithms become increasingly able to accurately predict the behavior of radiation within heterogeneous materials, the need for a means of appropriately testing their ability to do is becoming ever apparent. This study aims to evaluate the development of custom, low-cost, anthropomorphic phantoms constructed via additive manufacturing.Materials and
Methods: CT imaging of a select thoracic RANDO phantom slices were used as a basis for the construction of a low-cost testing phantom. CT images were segmented by HU value with 3DSlicer software. Values nearest to water equivalent were used to create a 3D printable semi-hollow reconstruction. PLA plastic was used in the additive manufacture of the subsequent phantom sections with a desktop-style 3D printer. The printed phantom shell was filled with low-cost tissue equivalent materials corresponding to regions identifiable as bone, lung, or muscle. The phantom was CT imaged and planned upon with the Varian Eclipse AAA, eMC and Acuros TPS algorithms and compared to those created upon the corresponding RANDO slices. A gamma analysis of calculated dose distributions and irradiated radiochromic films was used to evaluate the equivalency of the printed phantom under a variety of clinically relevant photon, electron and proton beam energies.
Results: The gamma analysis between photon and electron dose planes calculated within Eclipse between printed and RANDO phantoms showed a good agreement. Film analysis between calculated and measured distributions for both phantoms agreed better with their corresponding Eclipse calculations than the results of comparisons between the two phantoms. Proton results improved with the application of phantom-material specific HU to stopping-power conversion curves.
Conclusion: While the development is time consuming, the total cost of materials and equipment is less than $1000 USD. The availability of off-the-shelf additive manufacturing and tissue-equivalent materials can allow for the creation of custom anthropomorphic phantoms.
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