Highlights
- •Pioneering treatment beam monitoring system for intensity modulated proton therapy.
- •Gantry attachable plastic scintillating plate dosimetry monitoring beam fluences.
- •Cost-effective dosimetry system for pencil beam scanning proton therapy.
- •Possible solution for an independent verification of individual energy layers.
Abstract
Purpose
The entrance beam fluence of therapeutic proton scanning beams can be monitored using
a gantry-attachable plastic scintillating plate (GAPSP). This study evaluated the
clinical application of the GAPSP using a method that measures intensity modulated
proton therapy (IMPT) beams for patient treatment.
Methods
IMPT beams for the treatment of nine patients, at sites that included the spine, head
and neck, pelvis, and lung, were measured using the GAPSP, composed of an EJ-212 plastic
scintillator and a CMOS camera. All energy layers distinguished by the GAPSP were
accumulated to determine the dose distribution of the treatment field. The evaluated
fields were compared with reference dose maps verified by quality assurance.
Results
Comparison of dose distributions of evaluation treatment fields with reference dose
distributions showed that the 3%/1 mm average gamma passing rate was 96.4%, independent
of the treatment site, energy range and field size. When dose distributions were evaluated
using the same criteria for each energy layer, the average gamma passing rate was
91.7%.
Conclusions
The GAPSP is a suitable, low-cost method for monitoring pencil beam scanning proton
therapy, especially for non-spot scanning or additional collimation. The GAPSP can
also estimate the treatment beam by the energy layer, a feature not common to other
proton dosimetry tools.
Keywords
Abbreviations:
GAPSP (Gantry attachable plastic scintillating plate), PBS (Pencil beam scanning), QA (Quality assurance), CT (Computed tomography), EPID (Electronic portal imaging device), IMPT (Intensity modulated proton therapy), CMOS (Complementary metal-oxide semiconductor), fps (Frames per second), AVF (Azimuthally varying field), PTC (Proton therapy center), ESS (Energy selection system), SOBP (Spread-out Bragg peak), TPS (Treatment planning system), H&N (Head and neck)To read this article in full you will need to make a payment
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: August 29, 2020
Accepted:
August 19,
2020
Received in revised form:
July 24,
2020
Received:
April 29,
2020
Identification
Copyright
© 2020 Associazione Italiana di Fisica Medica. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
