AAPM WGTG51 Report 385: Addendum to the AAPM's TG-51 protocol for clinical reference dosimetry of high-energy electron beams.

An Addendum to the AAPM's TG-51 protocol for the determination of absorbed dose to water is presented for electron beams with energies between 4 MeV and 22 MeV ( ). This updated formalism allows simplified calibration procedures, including the use of calibrated cylindrical ionization chambers in all electron beams without the use of a gradient correction. New data are provided for electron beams based on Monte Carlo simulations.

OpenKBP-Opt: an international and reproducible evaluation of 76 knowledge-based planning pipelines.

To establish an open framework for developing plan optimization models for knowledge-based planning (KBP).Our framework includes radiotherapy treatment data (i.e.

An error detection method for real-time EPID-based treatment delivery quality assurance.

Purpose: To quantify the error detection power of a new treatment delivery error detection method. The method validates monitor unit (MU) resolved beam apertures using real-time EPID images.

Methods: The on-board EPID imager was used to measure cine-EPID (~10 Hz) images for 27 beams from 15 VMAT/SBRT clinical treatment plans and five nonclinical plans.

Radiosurgery treatment planning using conformal arc informed volumetric modulated arc therapy.

Linac based radiosurgery to multiple metastases is commonly planned with volumetric modulated arc therapy (VMAT) as it effectively achieves high conformality to complex target arrangements. However, as the number of targets increases, VMAT can struggle to block between targets, which can lead to highly modulated and/or nonconformal multi-leaf collimator (MLC) trajectories that unnecessarily irradiation of healthy tissue. In this study we introduce, describe, and evaluate a treatment planning technique called Conformal Arc Informed VMAT (CAVMAT), which aims to reduce the dose to healthy tissue while generating highly conformal treatment plans.

Testing the methodology for a dosimetric end-to-end audit of IMRT/VMAT: results of IAEA multicentre and national studies.

Within an International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) co-ordinated research project (CRP), a remote end-to-end dosimetric quality audit for intensity modulated radiation therapy (IMRT)/ volumetric arc therapy (VMAT) was developed to verify the radiotherapy chain including imaging, treatment planning and dose delivery. The methodology as well as the results obtained in a multicentre pilot study and national trial runs conducted in close cooperation with dosimetry audit networks (DANs) of IAEA Member States are presented. A solid polystyrene phantom containing a dosimetry insert with an irregular solid water planning target volume (PTV) and organ at risk (OAR) was designed for this audit.

A multinational audit of small field output factors calculated by treatment planning systems used in radiotherapy.

Background And Purpose: An audit methodology for verifying the implementation of output factors (OFs) of small fields in treatment planning systems (TPSs) used in radiotherapy was developed and tested through a multinational research group and performed on a national level in five different countries.

Materials And Methods: Centres participating in this study were asked to provide OFs calculated by their TPSs for 10 × 10 cm, 6 × 6 cm, 4 × 4 cm, 3 × 3 cm and 2 × 2 cm field sizes using an SSD of 100 cm. The ratio of these calculated OFs to reference OFs was analysed.

Evaluation of the radiotherapy treatment planning in the presence of a magnetic valve tissue expander.

The combination of radiotherapy treatments and breast reconstruction, using temporary tissue expanders, generates several concerns due to the presence of a magnetic valve inside the radiation field. The objective of this work is to evaluate a radiotherapy treatment planning for a patient using a tissue expander. Isodose curve maps, obtained using radiochromic films, were compared to the ones calculated with two different dose calculation algorithms of the Eclipse radiotherapy Treatment Planning System (TPS), considering the presence or absence of the heterogeneity.

Monte carlo simulation of bony heterogeneity effects on dose profile for small irradiation field in radiotherapy.

In the radiotherapy treatment planning of a lesion located in the head region with small field radiation beams, the heterogeneity corrections play an important role. In this work, we investigated the influence of a bony heterogeneity on dose profile inside a soft tissue phantom containing a bony material. PDD curves were obtained by simulation using the Monte Carlo code EGSnrc and employing Eclipse(R) treatment planning system algorithms (Batho, Modified Batho, Equivalent TAR and Anisotropic Analytic Algorithm) for a 15 MV photon beam and field sizes of 2x2 and 10x10 cm(2).