Challenge of shielding design for FLASH radiotherapy / 中华放射医学与防护杂志

Compared with conventional radiotherapy, FLASH radiotherapy has advantages in protecting normal tissues, while the dose rate is increased by more than 100 times. If the shielding design of the treatment room is carried out according to the existing standard, the thickness and cost of the shielding wall will be significantly increased, or even hardly to meet the requirement of the standards, resultsing in the failure of the application of FLASH radiotherapy. By investigating the domestic and foreign standards and literature, this paper analyzes the challenges brought by FLASH radiotherapy technology to the shielding design of radiotherapy treatment room in China. Dose rate control standards adopted by different countries in the shielding design are emphatically compared as well. In several countries, the average dose rate under the actual treatment conditions was considered in the shielding design. In China, the method of instantaneous dose rate taking acount of occupancy factor is adopted. However, if FLASH radiotherapy technology is applied, the requirement of instantaneous dose rate will be difficult to meet. In order to improve the high dose rate radiotherapy technology such as FLASH radiotherapy, the revision of the existing standards is advised if the authorized limits are not changed. To use the average dose rate limit within a certain period of time for control, or to raise the control standard in the case of flash radiotherapy, are also avaliable.

Clinical dosimetry commissioning of 1.5 T MR-linac / 中华放射肿瘤学杂志

Objective:To introduce the clinical dosimetry commissioning methods and results of the 1.5 T MR-linac.Methods:In May, 2019, an Elekta Unity 1.5 T MR-linac was installed in Cancer Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and dosimetry commissioning was performed with magnetic field compatible measuring instruments. Commissioning items include absolute dose calibration, data acquisition and planning system model verification.Results:Absolute dose calibration in magnetic field should be corrected by magnetic field correction factor. The standard output dose of Unity was 87 cGy. Gamma analysis (3%/2 mm) was performed on the beam collection data and the planning system calculation data. The average pass rate of dose verification of standard field test cases was 96.41%, and the TG119 test case was 98.24%. The IROC end to end test case was 97.5%(7%/4 mm).Conclusions:The planning system model and the beam collection data have good consistency. The dose verification results of the standard field and TG119 test cases meet the general tolerance limit requirements of the AAPM TG218 report, and the verification results of the IROC end-to-end test cases meet the IROC center standards.

Design of a drum-shaped applicator through Monte Carlo simulation for breast intraoperative radiotherapy / 中华放射肿瘤学杂志

Objective:To design a drum-shaped applicator through Monte Carlo simulation for breast intraoperative radiotherapy.Methods:Applicator designing process is as follows: first, determined the shape of the applicator based on the geometric characteristics of the breast tumor bed closed to the chest wall; second, calculated the scattering angle and dose rate of the electron beam after passing through a series of scattering foils of different thicknesses to determine the thickness of the scattering foil; thrid, modeled the layer according to the applicator′s geometric characteristics where modulator located, and designed the modulator through the relationship between the geometric characteristics of the layer and the surface dose of the applicator. EGSnrc/BEAMnrc and EGS4/DOSXYZ were employed to model the head of the Mobetron, the layer, the applicator, and to calculate the dose distributions.Results:The applicator has two components. The upper component is a 3cm-diametre cylindrical collimator with 0.5cm wall made of 0.3cm steel and 0.2cm water equivalent material (WEM), a 0.13cm-foil made of tansgen. The lower component is a 4cm-diametre drum made of 0.2cm WEM and a 0.14cm maximum thickness hill-shaped modulator made of steel. When the energy of electron beam was 12MeV, the dose rate was about 90.44 cGy/min, and the depth of the 50% isodose curve was 1cm.Conclusion:The applicator is successfully designed, and can obtain a drum-shaped dose distribution.

A study on fast cone beam CT / 中华放射肿瘤学杂志

Objective:To evaluate the effect of fast cone beam CT (CBCT) scan mode on image quality and registration results, and to establish the scanning pre-settings for fast CBCT.Methods:Three scanning modes were utilized to the CBCT phantom, and the registration accuracy and image quality were quantitatively evaluated. The correlation and consistency of measurement results under different scanning modes were further verified by 278 sets of CBCT data from 33 clinical tumor patients.Results:The maximum deviation between the measurement results of three scanning models and the actual value was 0.70 mm (0.51 mm on average). The measurement results of the same location were consistent among three scanning modes (0.00 mm). For the uniformity, the results of the normal mode were the best (3.62% on average), followed by the fast 1 mode (3.90% on average) and the fast 2 mode (4.84% on average). For the noise, the results of the normal mode were the best (15.69 on average), followed by the fast 2 mode (17.23 on average) and the fast 1 mode (21.74 on average). Regarding the high contrast resolution, the measurement results of three scanning modes were consistent (at least 3 pairs could be distinguished). For the low contrast resolution, the results of the fast 1 mode were the best (1.69 on average), followed by the normal mode (2.10 on average), and the fast 2 mode (2.31 on average). For the geometric accuracy, the measurement results of the three scanning modes were basically consistent with a mean deviation of 0.05 mm. The correlation of the measurement results between normal mode and fast 1 mode was the highest in clinical cases ( R2>0.90, P<0.01) with a high degree of consistency (95% consistency limit of the above two scanning modes< 1 mm threshold). Conclusion:Compared with the normal mode, the fast 1 mode can yield equivalent image quality, consistent registration results, faster scanning speed and lower scanning dose. Therefore, the fast 1 mode is recommended as the scan mode in clinical practice.

Design of a semi-spherical applicator for intraoperative radiotherapy with a linear accelerator and assessment of its dosemetric characteristics based on Monte Carlo simulation / 中华放射医学与防护杂志

Objective:To design a semi-spherical applicator for delivery of semi-spherical dose distributions and assess its dosemetric characteristics.Methods:The applicator was designed in the following way. First, the scattering angle and dose rate of the electron beam having passed through a series of scattering foils of different thicknesses were calculated to determine the thickness of the scattering foil. And then, a series of location model was designed, and the variances of the mean electron energy on the surface of these models were calculated to determine the foil location. Finally, the relationship between the geometric characteristics of the layer and the surface dose on the applicator was established to design the modulator. Monte Carlo (MC) codes EGSnrc/BEAMnrc and EGS4/DOSXYZ were employed to model the head of the Mobetron, the location model, the layer, the semi-spherical applicator, and to calculate the dose distributions.Results:A semi-spherical applicator was designed for electron beam of energy 12 MeV, which consisted of a 2.5 cm diametre cylindrical collimator with 0.5 cm thick wall made of 0.3 cm thick steel and 0.2 cm thick water equivalent material (WEM), a 0.14 cm-thick foil made of tansgen, and a 2.5 cm diametre hollow semi-sphere containing a crescent modulator made of WEM. The dose rate was about 160 cGy/min, and the depth of the 50% isodose curve was 0.85 cm.Conclutions:We designed and performed a MC simulation of a semi-spherical applicator to deliver a semi-spherical dose distribution from a high energy electron beam.

Small field output factor measurement and correction method based on IAEA report No.483 / 中华放射肿瘤学杂志

Objective The IAEA report No.483 describes the latest method of small field dosimetry.The field output factor measurement and correction methods are used to improve the accuracy and consistency of the measurement results for different type detectors.Methods The field output factors from 0.6 cm×0.6 cm to 10 cm× 10 cm were measured using IBA's CC13 ionization chamber,CC01 ionization chamber,PFD semiconductor detector,EFD semiconductor detector and Razor semiconductor detector,respectively.The field output correction factors were used to correct the measurement result.Results Compared with the corrected data,the results of ionization chamber are mainly affected by the volume averaging and the fluence perturbation effect,lead to the measurement result which is 4.70％ lower at 0.6 cm × 0.6 cm;The results of Shielded semiconductors are mainly affected by fluence perturbation effect,lead to the measurement result which is 4.80％ higher at 0.6 cm × 0.6 cm.The results of unshielded semiconductors are mainly affected by energy response and fluence perturbation effect,resulting in lower measurement results at the field size＞0.8 cm×0.8 cm,2.10％ lower at field size of 1.5 cm× 1.5 cm,higher measurement results at field size＜0.8 cm×0.8 cm and 1.1％ higher at field size of 0.6 cm×0.6 cm.Before the correction,the measurement results from different types of detectors are quite different,average standard deviation is 0.016 6.After the correction,the difference among the detectors is significantly reduced,average standard deviation is 0.006 6.Conclusions For detectors such as ionization chambers and semiconductors,the field output correction factors can be used to correct the output factors of the small field to improve the accuracy and consistency of the measurement results.

A method of measuring the field output factor based on daisy-chaining / 中华放射肿瘤学杂志

Objective improve the accuracy of the measurement results by using the field output factor measurement method based on daisy-chaining.Methods The Varian Edge Accelerator 6 MV X-ray data were measured using the IBA CC13 ionization chamber, IBA CC01 ionization chamber, IBA Razor semiconductor detector , IBA EFD semiconductor detector and Gafchromic EBT 3 film , respectively. Results Compared with the daisy-chaining measurement method,the results obtained by the conventional measurement method using CC13 were smaller. The deviation value was 16. 71% in the 1 cm × 1 cm field. The measurement results in a larger field via CC01 were bigger with a deviation of 8. 39% in the 40 cm × 40 cm filed. The measurement results via Razor in a larger field were larger with a deviation of 9. 40% in the 40 cm × 40 cm field. The measurement results were similar between EFD and Razor with a deviation of 9. 14% in the 40 cm × 40 cm field. The results of the film measurement were equivalent to those obtained from the daisy-chaining method in a field of＞ 1 cm × 1 cm with a deviation within 1. 60%,whereas the deviation was increased to 3. 13% in the 1 cm× 1 cm field. The results were consistent with daisy-chaining measurement if the 3 cm × 3 cm or 4 cm × 4 cm fields were selected as the intermediate fields with the maximum deviation of 0. 29%. Conclusions For the detectors with changing response along with the field size,daisy-chaining measurement method can be utilized to extend the measurement range and improve the accuracy of the measurement results.

Selection, installation, and acceptance test of MRI simulator / 中华放射肿瘤学杂志

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) simulator (MRI-Sim) can provide superior images for radiotherapy.Due to the complexity of MRI technology and the safety problem caused by strong magnetic field, the acquisition and implementation of MRI simulation is more complicated than CT simulation.In order to ensure the introduction of MRI-Sim, this paper reviews the selection, installation, and acceptance test of MRI-Sim, including the selection of host and auxiliary equipment, installation site preparation, and safety precautions,as well as MRI-Sim acceptance test and commissioning.