Abstract
To achieve a dose distribution conformal to the target volume while sparing normal tissues, intensity modulation with steep dose gradient is used for treatment planning. To successfully deliver such treatment, high spatial and dosimetric accuracy are crucial and need to be verified. With high 2D dosimetry resolution and a self-development property, the Ashland Inc. product EBT3 Gafchromic film is a widely used quality assurance tool designed especially for this. However, the film should be recalibrated each quarter due to the “aging effect,” and calibration uncertainties always exist between individual films even in the same lot. Recently, artificial neural networks (ANN) are applied to many fields. If a physicist can collect the calibration data, it could be accumulated to be a substantial ANN data input used for film calibration. We therefore use the Keras functional Application Program Interface to build a hierarchical neural network (HNN), with the inputs of net optical densities, pixel values, and inverse transmittances to reveal the delivered dose and train the neural network with deep learning. For comparison, the film dose calculated using red-channel net optical density with power function fitting was performed and taken as a conventional method. The results show that the percentage error of the film dose using the HNN method is less than 4% for the aging effect verification test and less than 4.5% for the intralot variation test; in contrast, the conventional method could yield errors higher than 10% and 7%, respectively. This HNN method to calibrate the EBT film could be further improved by adding training data or adjusting the HNN structure. The model could help physicists spend less calibration time and reduce film usage.
Highlights
In addition to dose painting, various strategies of radiation therapy with steep dose gradients are used to deliver a nonuniform dose to a clinical target with reduced toxicity to normal tissues [1, 2]
Several generations of the Gafchromic film have been developed, but only EBT2 and EBT3 film models are recommended by Ashland for verifying all beam-modulated techniques [16]
This is because spatial nonhomogeneity is BioMed Research International corrected by its yellow marker dye [15, 17,18,19,20,21,22], so it is less sensitive to the visible spectrum, and it is available for repeated scans [23, 24]
Summary
In addition to dose painting, various strategies of radiation therapy with steep dose gradients are used to deliver a nonuniform dose to a clinical target with reduced toxicity to normal tissues [1, 2]. Several generations of the Gafchromic film have been developed, but only EBT2 and EBT3 film models are recommended by Ashland for verifying all beam-modulated techniques [16]. This is because spatial nonhomogeneity is BioMed Research International corrected by its yellow marker dye [15, 17,18,19,20,21,22], so it is less sensitive to the visible spectrum, and it is available for repeated scans [23, 24]. Based on the Ashland report, the effective atomic numbers of EBT2 and EBT3 films are around 6.8 and 7.3, which is approximately water equivalent, increasing their suitability for patient dosimetry [24, 30]
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