Quality assurance for radiotherapy in prostate cancer: Point dose measurements in intensity modulated fields with large dose gradients

Abstract

Purpose: We aimed to evaluate an optimization algorithm designed to find the most favorable points to position an ionization chamber (IC) for quality assurance dose measurements of patients treated for prostate cancer with intensity-modulated radiotherapy (IMRT) and fields up to 10 cm × 10 cm. Methods and Materials: Three cylindrical ICs (PTW, Freiburg, Germany) were used with volumes of 0.6 cc, 0.125 cc, and 0.015 cc. Dose measurements were made in a plastic phantom (PMMA) at 287 optimized points. An algorithm was designed to search for points with the lowest dose gradient. Measurements were made also at 39 nonoptimized points. Results were normalized to a reference homogeneous field introducing a dose ratio factor, which allowed us to compare measured vs. calculated values as percentile dose ratio factor deviations ΔF (%). A tolerance range of ΔF (%) of ±3% was considered. Results: Half of the ΔF (%) values obtained at nonoptimized points were outside the acceptable range. Values at optimized points were widely spread for the largest IC (i.e., 60% of the results outside the tolerance range), whereas for the two small-volume ICs, only 14.6% of the results were outside the tolerance interval. No differences were observed when comparing the two small ICs. Conclusions: The presented optimization algorithm is a useful tool to determine the best IC in-field position for optimal dose measurement conditions. A good agreement between calculated and measured doses can be obtained by positioning small volume chambers at carefully selected points in the field. Large chambers may be unreliable even in optimized points for IMRT fields ≤10 cm × 10 cm.