EFOMP Malaga Declaration 2023: An updated vision on Medical Physics in Europe.

In 2006, the European Federation of Organisations for Medical Physics (EFOMP) adopted the "Malaga Declaration". The declaration asserted the fundamental role of Medical Physics professionals in the radiation protection of patients, workers, general public, carers and comforters and research participants in hospitals. However, since that time the Medical Physics profession has evolved in Europe and new regulations and documentation have been issued, such as directive 2013/59/Euratom and the "European Guidelines on Medical Physics Expert" (RP174).

Dose accuracy improvement on head and neck VMAT treatments by using the Acuros algorithm and accurate FFF beam calibration.

Background: The purpose of this study was to assess dose accuracy improvement and dosimetric impact of switching from the anisotropic analytical algorithm (AA) to the Acuros XB algorithm (AXB) when performing an accurate beam calibration in head and neck (H&N) FFF-VMAT treatments.

Materials And Methods: Twenty H&N cancer patients treated with FFF-VMAT techniques were included. Calculations were performed with the AA and AXB algorithm (dose-to-water - AXB- and dose-to-medium - AXB-).

Dosimetric impact of failing to apply correction factors to ion recombination in percentage depth dose measurements and the volume-averaging effect in flattening filter-free beams.

Purpose: To examine whether it is essential to apply correction factors for ion recombination (k) to percentage depth dose (PDD) measurements and to the volume-averaging effect (k) to ensure accurate absolute dose calibration for flattening filter-free (FFF) beams for the most commonly used ionization chambers.

Methods: We surveyed medical physicists worldwide (n = 159) to identify the five most common ionization chamber combinations used for absolute and relative reference dosimetry of FFF beams. We then assessed the overall absolute dose calibration error for FFF beams of the Artiste Siemens and TrueBeam Varian linear accelerators resulting from failing to apply correction factors k in the PDD(10) and the volume-averaging effect (k) to such chamber combinations.

Assessment of ion recombination correction and polarity effects for specific ionization chambers in flattening-filter-free photon beams.

Purpose: To investigate ion recombination correction and polarity effects in four ion chamber models in flattening-filter-free (FFF) beams to (1) evaluate their suitability for reference dosimetry; (2) assess the accuracy of the two-voltage technique (TVA) against the Bruggmoser formalism; and (3) examine the influence of the accelerator type on the recombination correction.

Methods: Jaffé plots were created for a variety of microchambers, small-volume and Farmer-type chambers to obtain k, the recombination correction factor, using two different types of accelerators. These values were plotted against dose-per-pulse and Jaffé plots for opposite polarities were created to determine which chambers meet the AAPM TG-51 addendum recombination and polarity specifications.

EFOMP policy statement 16: The role and competences of medical physicists and medical physics experts under 2013/59/EURATOM.

On 5 December 2013 the European Council promulgated Directive 2013/59/EURATOM. This Directive is important for Medical Physicists and Medical Physics Experts as it puts the profession on solid foundations and describes it more comprehensively. Much commentary regarding the role and competences has been developed in the context of the European Commission project "European Guidelines on the Medical Physics Expert" published as Radiation Protection Report RP174.