Uncertainty of calibrations at the accredited dosimetry calibration laboratories.

The American Association of Physicists in Medicine, through a subcommittee (formerly Task Group 3) of the Radiation Therapy Committee, has accredited five laboratories to perform calibrations of instruments used to calibrate therapeutic radiation beams. The role of the accredited dosimetry calibration laboratories (ADCLs) is to transfer a calibration factor from an instrument calibrated by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to a customer's instrument. It is of importance to the subcommittee, to physicists using the services of the ADCLs, and to the ADCLs themselves, to know the uncertainty of instrument calibrations. The calibration uncertainty has been analyzed by asking the laboratories to provide information about their calibration procedures. Estimates of uncertainty by two procedures were requested: Type A are uncertainties derived as the standard deviations of repeated measurements, while type B are estimates of uncertainties obtained by other methods, again expressed as standard deviations. Data have been received describing the uncertainty of each parameter involved in calibrations, including those associated with measurements of charge, exposure time, and air density, among others. These figures were combined with the uncertainty of NIST calibrations, to arrive at an overall uncertainty which is expressed at the two-standard deviation level. For cable-connected instruments in gamma-ray and x-ray beams of HVL > 1 mm Al, the figure has an upper bound of approximately 1.2%.

A comparison of methods for calibrating parallel-plate chambers/.

All dosimetry protocols for calibrating the output of electron beams recommend the use of parallel-plate ionization chambers, but the method of determining their value of Ngas is a matter of concern. The AAPM Protocol (TG 21) recommends a direct comparison with a calibrated cylindrical chamber in phantom at dmax with the highest available electron energy beam. This must be done by the user. Since all calibration laboratories traditionally use 60Co for megavoltage chamber calibrations, two alternate procedures based on exposures in-air, or in-phantom, have been proposed. All methods use correction factors in the data reduction. To verify the consistency of the three methods, we have measured Ngas using each of these techniques for six of the most commonly used and commercially-available parallel-plate ionization chambers. The paired cylindrical and parallel-plate ionization chambers, and phantom materials/buildup caps were matched to the wall composition of the plane chambers, as recommended in TG 39. A 22 MeV electron beam was used for the electron irradiations. The ionization chambers were then taken to an Accredited Dosimetry Calibration Laboratory (ADCL), where 60Co calibrations were performed. The results demonstrate that, by using the appropriate correction factors for the chambers described in this work, all three methods yield values for Ngas that are within 1% of each other.

The calibration and use of plane-parallel ionization chambers for dosimetry of electron beams: an extension of the 1983 AAPM protocol report of AAPM Radiation Therapy Committee Task Group No. 39.

This report is an extension of the 1983 AAPM protocol, popularly known as the TG-21 Protocol. It deals with the calibration of plane-parallel ionization chambers and their use in calibrating therapy electron beams. A hierarchy of methods is presented. The first is to calibrate the plane-parallel chamber in a high energy electron beam against a cylindrical chamber which has an Ncylgas value that has been obtained from a NIST traceable 60Co beam calibration. The second method, which is recommended for implementation by the ADCLs is an in-air calibration against a NIST-traceable calibrated cylindrical chamber in a Cobalt-60 beam to obtain a plane-parallel-chamber calibration factor in terms of exposure or air kerma. The third method places the two chambers in a phantom in a Cobalt-60 beam, and leads to an Nppgas value for the plane-parallel chamber. This report also gives Nppgas/NxAion)pp and Nppgas/(NkAion)pp values for five commonly used commercially available plane-parallel chambers: the Capintec PS-033, the Exradin P-11, the Holt, the NACP and the PTW-Markus. The calculation of these Ngas ratios introduces a Kcomp factor which is also calculated for the five parallel plate chambers. The use of the plane-parallel chambers follows the 1983 AAPM protocol for absorbed dose calibrations of electrons, except that new energy-dependent Prepl values are given for the Capintec PS-033 and PTW-Markus chambers consistent with the consensus of reports in the literature. For all the chambers, however, Prepl is unity for 20 MeV electrons. This report does not address the issue of the use of plane-parallel chambers in calibrating photon beams.

Water-equivalent plastic scintillation detectors for high-energy beam dosimetry: I. Physical characteristics and theoretical consideration.

A minimally perturbing plastic scintillation detector has been developed for the dosimetry of high-energy beams in radiotherapy. The detector system consists of two identical parallel sets of radiation-resistant optical fibre bundles, each connected to independent photomultiplier tubes (PMTs). One fibre bundle is connected to a miniature water equivalent plastic scintillator and so scintillation as well as Cerenkov light generated in the fibres is detected at its PMT. The other 'background' bundle is not connected to the scintillator and so only Cerenkov light is detected by its PMT. The background signal is subtracted to yield only the signal from the scintillator. The water-equivalence of plastic scintillation detectors is studied for photon and electron beams in the radiotherapy range. Application of Burlin cavity theory shows that the energy dependence of such detectors is expected to be better than the commonly used systems (ionization chambers, LiF thermoluminescent dosimeters, film and Si diodes). It is also shown that they are not affected by temperature variations and exhibit much less radiation damage than either photon or electron diode detectors.

Water-equivalent plastic scintillation detectors for high-energy beam dosimetry: II. Properties and measurements.

The properties of a new scintillation detector system for use in dosimetry of high-energy beams in radiotherapy have been measured. The most important properties of these detectors are their hgh spatial resolution and their nearly water-equivalence. Measurements have shown that they have excellent reproducibility and stability, and a linear response versus dose-rate. It is also shown that they have better spatial resolution than ionization chambers and have much less energy or depth dependence in electron fields due to the removal of the influence of the polarization effect. Dose distributions in water, using miniature plastic scintillation detectors, have been measured for different high-energy photon and electron beams.

A new re-entrant ionization chamber for the calibration of iridium-192 high dose rate sources.

A re-entrant (well-type) ionization chamber has been designed and fabricated at the University of Wisconsin for use with iridium-192 high dose-rate (HDR) remote after-loading brachytherapy devices. The chamber was designed to provide an ionization current of about 10(-8) ampere with a nominal 10 curie iridium-192 source. A narrow opening is provided into the sensitive volume of the chamber to insert a Nucletron MicroSelectron catheter, or catheters with similar diameters from other HDR manufacturers. The chamber exhibits a flat response (+/- 0.1%) for any source position within +/-4 mm of the chamber center. A 300 volt chamber bias yields a 99.96% ion collection efficiency. The chamber is capable of being calibrated directly with an iridium-192 source which has in turn been calibrated with thimble-type ion chambers. Reproducibility for readings in the current mode for 10 consecutive insertions of the MicroSelectron iridium-192 HDR source is within 0.02% or less. Two thimble chambers calibrated by the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology provide calibration traceability of iridium-192 HDR sources and re-entrant chambers to a primary national standards laboratory. Results of activity measurements of 6 commercial iridium-192 HDR sources are reported.

Calibration of 192Ir high-dose-rate afterloading systems.

A method is described for calibration of 192Ir high-dose-rate (HDR) brachytherapy afterloading systems. Since NIST does not offer calibration of ionization chambers with the gamma-ray spectrum of iridium-192, an interpolation procedure is employed, using calibrations above (137Cs, 662 keV) and below (250 kVcp, 146-keV x rays) the exposure-weighted average 192Ir energy of 397 keV. The same total wall + cap thickness must be used for both calibrations, and for the 192Ir measurements. A wall + cap thickness of 0.3 g/cm2 is recommended to assure charged particle equilibrium and to exclude secondary electrons emitted from the source encapsulation. Procedures are described for determining the corrections for source-chamber distance and room scatter during the source calibration in inverse-square-law geometry. A new well-type ionization chamber has been designed specifically for convenient routine use with the HDR afterloading system. It can be calibrated by means of a previously calibrated 192Ir source, and offers a simple means for verifying the decay rate and for calibrating 192Ir replacement sources.

A proposal for the calibration of plane-parallel ion chambers by accredited dosimetry calibration laboratories.

A procedure is described by which the AAPM-accredited dosimetry calibration laboratories could offer calibrations of plane-parallel ionization chambers for radiotherapy dosimetry applications, by comparison with a cylindrical ion chamber in a phantom irradiated by 60Co gamma rays. Ngas can thus be determined for the plane-parallel chamber under uniform conditions of photon scatter, and without the need for an electron fluence correction.

Equations for Ngas and Nair in terms of Nx and Nk.

Task Group 21 of the American Association of Physicists in Medicine defined the cavity-gas calibration factor Ngas for ionization chambers in a protocol for radiotherapy dosimetry published in this journal [Med. Phys. 10, 741 (1983)]. Later, Schulz et al., [Med. Phys. 13, 755 (1986)] published a letter of clarification that proposed a revised equation for Ngas in which the effect of atmospheric humidity was specifically dealt with. The present report points out errors in both of those presentations of the Ngas equation, and derives formulations for cases where the standardization laboratory does or does not correct for ambient humidity during chamber calibration. In the case where humidity is corrected for, the resulting quantity is more properly called "Nair." The Ngas equation is stated in terms of the air kerma calibration factor Nk as well as the more familiar exposure calibration factor Nx.

Experimental derivation of beta for high-energy photons.

The absorbed dose in a medium for a given beam of megavoltage photons is related to the collision kerma by the energy dependent parameter beta. Some theoretical methods of estimating and calculating beta have been proposed in the past. The majority of the methods take into account only Compton interactions, with just one method taking into account the beam spectrum, coherent and incoherent scattering and pair production effects. Experimentally measured data, on the other hand, implicitly include appropriate contributions of all these processes. Experimentally derived beta values are tabulated and the rationale for their measurement is discussed. The beta value for a low-Z ion chamber calibration in free space with a 60Co gamma-ray beam is 1.002. The dependence of beta on several factors such as energy, field size, phantom material and depth has been studied.

Skin-sparing effects of neutron beam filtering materials.

The skin-sparing effects of several filtering materials for fast neutron beams were studied under various conditions. A parallel-plate ionization chamber was used for the measurements. The parameters which were studied included field size, distance from filter to ion chamber, filter material, and filter thickness. On the basis of this work, Teflon (polytetrafluoroethylene) was chosen for fabrication of flattening filters and wedges.

Charge storage in electron-irradiated phantom materials.

A recent article by Galbraith et al. [Med. Phys. 11, 197 (1984)] revealed the existence of dose errors due to charge storage in electron-irradiated plastic phantoms. We have subsequently studied the same effect using similar materials, plus some others including "solid water," which is an epoxy-based phantom material manufactured by Radiation Measurement, Inc. Our work shows that there is minimal charge storage in solid water, as compared to polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) and polystyrene. Since existing dosimetry protocols allow PMMA and polystyrene to be used for calibration phantoms, users should beware of the possible dosimetry errors resulting from charge storage in those plastics, and consider choosing other water-substitute media, such as solid water, that do not display this effect.

A method for matching NBS x-ray beam qualities with a half- or full-wave rectified generator.

A method has been devised to enable users of half- and full-wave rectified x-ray sets to match the revised National Bureau of Standards (NBS) x-ray beam qualities obtained with a constant potential generator. The method provides a rapid technique for determining the added filter necessary to attain the same first half-value layers and nearly the same homogeneity coefficients as NBS. Beam qualities from 100 to 250 kVcp have been duplicated and used to perform blind calibrations at four beam qualities on each of two ion chambers owned by the National Bureau of Standards.

Determination of Aion and Pion in the new AAPM radiotherapy dosimetry protocol.

Simple equations are given by which accurate values of Aion and Pion can be obtained for use in applying the AAPM Task Group 21 dosimetry protocol.

A simple derivation of Ngas, a correction in Awall, and other comments on the AAPM Task Group 21 protocol.

The new AAPM Task Group 21 dosimetry protocol is a useful document that will no doubt result in improved accuracy in radiotherapy beam standardization when it is generally understood and widely adopted. It does however, require some "debugging." The present paper clarifies the derivation of Ngas, points out an error in the Awall data, and discusses the impracticality of applying the gradient approach in correcting for ion chamber perturbation of dose in phantoms irradiated by electron beams.

Performance characteristics of A 150 plastic-equivalent gases in A 150 plastic proportional counters for 14.8-MeV neutrons.

Two recently developed A 150 plastic-equivalent gas mixtures have been tested for suitability in proportional counter applications. Methane- and propane-based "tissue-equivalent" gases were also included for comparison purposes. Event-size weighted dose distributions were measured in a 14.8-MeV neutron beam. Resolution was found to be independent of gas mixture. Moreover the gains of the two A 150 mixtures were the same, and comparable to that of the methane-based gas mixture. The ionization yield per event size was also independent of the hydrogenous gas mixture employed. Neutron doses determined with the proportional counter were in reasonable agreement with those obtained from an ionization chamber.

Energy imparted, energy transferred and net energy transferred.

The ICRU-defined non-stochastic quantity absorbed dose is related to the stochastic quantity energy imparted. In this paper the corresponding stochastic quantities energy transferred and net energy transferred are defined as precursors for kerma and collision kerma, respectively. This forms a rational fundamental framework for radiation dosimetry which facilitates its teaching and understanding.

Calculational methods for estimating skin dose from electrons in Co-60 gamma-ray beams.

Several methods have been employed to calculate the relative contribution to skin dose due to scattered electrons in Co-60 gamma-ray beams. Either the Klein-Nishina differential scattering probability is employed to determine the number and initial energy of electrons scattered into the direction of a detector, or a Gaussian approximation is used to specify the surface distribution of initial pencil electron beams created by parallel or diverging photon fields. Results of these calculations are compared with experimental data. In addition, that fraction of relative surface dose resulting from photon interactions in air alone is estimated and compared with data extrapolated from measurements at large source-surface distance (SSD). The contribution to surface dose from electrons generated in air is 50% or more of the total skin dose for SSDs greater than 80 cm.