SU‐E‐T‐269: Quality Assurance of Spine Volumetric Modulated Arc Therapy with Flattening Filter Free Beams Using Gafchromic EBT3 Films

Abstract

Purpose:We implemented the Gafchromic film‐based patient specific QA of volumetric modulated arc therapy (VMAT) with flattening‐filter free (FFF) beams for spine metastases and validated the accuracy of fast arc delivery.Methods:EBT3 films and a homemade cylindrical QA phantom were employed for dosimetric verification of VMATs. For 14 FFF VMAT plans (10 with 10‐MV FFF beams and 4 with 6‐MV FFF beams), the doses were recalculated on the phantom and delivered by a TrueBeam STx accelerator equipped with a high‐definition 120 leaf MLC. The EBT3 films were scanned using an Epson 10000XL scanner through the FilmQA Pro software. All the irradiated film images were converted to dose map using a calibration response curve. The resulting dose map of film measurement was compared with treatment plan and evaluated using gamma analysis with dose tolerance of 2% within 2 mm. In addition, the point‐dose measurement in the phantom using an ion chamber was evaluated as a reference in a ratio of measured and planned doses.Results:The gamma pass rates averaged over all FFF plans for composite‐field measurements were 96.0 ± 3.6% (88.9%–99.5%). When adopting a tolerance level of 3% – 3 mm, the gamma pass rates were improved with the ranges from 98% to 100%. In addition, dose profiles and dose distributions showed that spinal cord was protected by the rapid dose fall‐off and by delivering the treatment with high precision. In point‐dose measurements, the average differences between the measured and planned doses were 0.5% ± 1.0% of the prescription dose.Conclusion:We demonstrated that Gafchromic EBT3 film would be an effective patient‐specific QA tool, especially for VMAT of spine SBRT with treatment of small fields and highly gradient dose distributions. The results of film QA verified that the dosimetric accuracy of spine SBRT utilizing RapidArc with FFF beams in our institution is reliable.