In the UMC Utrecht a prototype MR-linac has been installed. The system consists of a 6 MV Elekta (Crawley, UK) linear accelerator and a 1.5 T Philips (Best, The Netherlands) Achieva MRI system. This paper investigates the feasibility to correct the ionization chamber reading for the magnetic field within the dosimetry calibration method described by Almond et al (1999 Med. Phys. 26 1847-70). Firstly, the feasibility of using an ionization chamber in an MR-linac was assessed by investigating possible influences of the magnetic field on NE2571 Farmer-type ionization chamber characteristics: linearity, repeatability, orientation in the magnetic field; and AAPM TG51 correction factor for voltage polarity and ion recombination. We found that these AAPM correction factors for the NE2571 chamber were not influenced by the magnetic field. Secondly, the influence of the permanent 1.5 T magnetic field on the NE2571 chamber reading was quantified. The reading is influenced by the magnetic field; therefore, a correction factor has been added. For the standardized setup used in this paper, the NE2571 chamber reading increases by 4.9% (± 0.2%) due to the transverse 1.5 T magnetic field. Dosimetry measurements in an MR-linac are feasible, if a setup-specific magnetic field correction factor (P1.5 T) for the charge reading is introduced. For the setup investigated in this paper, the P1.5 T has a value of 0.953.

At the UMC Utrecht, a linear accelerator with integrated magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has been developed, the MR-linac. Patient-specific quality assurance (QA) of treatment plans for MRI-based image guided radiotherapy requires QA equipment compatible with this 1.5 T magnetic field. The purpose of this study was to examine the performance characteristics of the ArcCHECK-MR in a transverse 1.5 T magnetic field. To this end, the short-term reproducibility, dose linearity, dose rate dependence, field size dependence, dose per pulse dependence and inter-diode dose response variation of the ArcCHECK-MR diode array were evaluated on a conventional linac and on the MR-linac. The ArcCHECK-MR diode array performed well for all tests on both linacs, no significant differences in performance characteristics were observed. Differences in the maximum dose deviations between both linacs were less than 1.5%. Therefore, we conclude that the ArcCHECK-MR can be used in a transverse 1.5 T magnetic field.