Based on the results of this study, the new PRESAGE formulations with lower halogen content are more radiologically water equivalent overall than the original formulation. This indicates that the new PRESAGE formulations are better suited to clinical applications and are more accurate dosimeters and phantoms than the original PRESAGE formulation. While correction factors are still needed to convert the dose measured by the dosimeter to an absorbed dose in water in the kilovoltage energy range, these correction factors are considerably smaller for the new PRESAGE formulations compared to the original PRESAGE and the existing polymer gel dosimeters.

No abstract

The genipin radiochromic gel offers enormous potential as a three-dimensional dosimeter in advanced radiotherapy techniques. We have used several methods (including Monte Carlo simulation), to investigate the water equivalency of genipin gel by characterizing its radiological properties, including mass and electron densities, photon interaction cross sections, mass energy absorption coefficient, effective atomic number, collisional, radiative and total mass stopping powers and electron mass scattering power. Depth doses were also calculated for clinical kilovoltage and megavoltage x-ray beams as well as megavoltage electron beams. The mass density, electron density and effective atomic number of genipin were found to differ from water by less than 2%. For energies below 150 keV, photoelectric absorption cross sections are more than 3% higher than water due to the strong dependence on atomic number. Compton scattering and pair production interaction cross sections for genipin gel differ from water by less than 1%. The mass energy absorption coefficient is approximately 3% higher than water for energies <60 keV due to the dominance of photoelectric absorption in this energy range. The electron mass stopping power and mass scattering power differ from water by approximately 0.3%. X-ray depth dose curves for genipin gel agree to within 1% with those for water. Our results demonstrate that genipin gel can be considered water equivalent for kilovoltage and megavoltage x-ray beam dosimetry. For megavoltage electron beam dosimetry, however, our results suggest that a correction factor may be needed to convert measured dose in genipin gel to that of water, since differences in some radiological properties of up to 3% compared to water are observed. Our results indicate that genipin gel exhibits greater water equivalency than polymer gels and PRESAGE formulations.

No abstract

Dosimetry of proton beams using 3D imaging of chemical dosimeters is complicated by a variation with proton linear energy transfer (LET) of the dose–response (the so-called ‘quenching effect’). Simple theoretical arguments lead to the conclusion that the total absorbed dose from multiple irradiations with different LETs cannot be uniquely determined from post-irradiation imaging measurements on the dosimeter. Thus, a direct inversion of the imaging data is not possible and the proposition is made to use a forward model based on appropriate output from a planning system to predict the 3D response of the dosimeter.In addition to the quenching effect, it is well known that chemical dosimeters have a non-linear response at high doses. To the best of our knowledge it has not yet been determined how this phenomenon is affected by LET. The implications for dosimetry of a number of potential scenarios are examined.Dosimeter response as a function of depth (and hence LET) was measured for four samples of the radiochromic plastic PRESAGE®, using an optical computed tomography readout and entrance doses of 2.0 Gy, 4.0 Gy, 7.8 Gy and 14.7 Gy, respectively. The dosimeter response was separated into two components, a single-exponential low-LET response and a LET-dependent quenching. For the particular formulation of PRESAGE® used, deviations from linearity of the dosimeter response became significant for doses above approximately 16 Gy.In a second experiment, three samples were each irradiated with two separate beams of 4 Gy in various different configurations. On the basis of the previous characterizations, two different models were tested for the calculation of the combined quenching effect from two contributions with different LETs. It was concluded that a linear superposition model with separate calculation of the quenching for each irradiation did not match the measured result where two beams overlapped. A second model, which used the concept of an ‘effective dose’ matched the experimental results more closely. An attempt was made to measure directly the quench function for two proton beams as a function of all four variables of interest (two physical doses and two LET values). However, this approach was not successful because of limitations in the response of the scanner.