Measurements of Electron Beam Dose Distributions in Perspex Block for Different Field Size

• Published in: Journal of physics. Conference series Vol. 1829; no. 1; p. 12025
• Main Authors: Sami, Safa, Hameed, Ban S, Alazawy, Nabaa M, Al-Musawi, Mustafa J
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Bristol IOP Publishing 01.03.2021
• Subjects: Collimators; Electron beams; Physics; Quality assurance; Radiation therapy; Tumors
• ISSN: 1742-6588; 1742-6596
• DOI: 10.1088/1742-6596/1829/1/012025

Abstract The linear accelerator is used in radiotherapy to treat tumors whether it was benign or malignant. The megavoltage electron beam is used to treat superficial tumors that do not exceed 5cm depth. In this work the dose distribution before irradiating the patient to check whether the prescribed dose is matched with the irradiated dose to help the physicist to fix the errors or deviations if it is detected. The quality assurance (QA) measured of electron beam with energy 12 MeV at common different depths and field sizes using StarTrack 2D detector and to ensure that it does not exceed the recommended limits. The equipped QA device is a StarTrack 2D detector under the linear accelerator infinity from Elekta at 100 cm from source-to surface distance SSD. The tested energy 12 MeV at depths 0.5 cm and 1.5 cm for field sizes 6cm×6cm, 10cm×10 cm and 14cm×14cm as limits measured according to the International Electrotechnical Commissioning (IEC) protocols. Results show that the revealed an error in the output dose at 6cm×6cm and 10cm×10 cm field sizes for 1.5 cm depth but for 14cm×14cm field size at 0.5 cm depth, the dose found to be above the tolerance. Also it’s found that the output dose is highly reached to 1.5 cm depth than the 0.5 cm. Furthermore, all the rotation axis of the collimator are within the limits with a few noises in the signal at the inline and the crossline axis. We conclude that there was an error in the output does need to be recalibrated before irradiating the patients to electron beam therapy at 12 MeV to assure that the treatment is qualified and efficient.