Calibration of portal imaging devices for radiotherapy in-vivo dosimetry

The complexity of radiotherapy techniques requires an accurate verification of the dose delivered to the patient during treatment. Recently, the present authors have developed an in patient dose reconstruction method with X-ray beams for 3D conformal radiotherapy. The procedure is based on correlation functions defined by the ratios of the transit signal measured by an electronic portal imaging device (EPID) to the mid-plane dose measured by calibrated ion chambers in a solid water phantom. The dosimetric characterization of aSi EPIDs in terms of signal stability, linearity and dependence on field dimension pointed out that these detectors are useful for the transit dosimetry of photon beams. However, the aSi EPIDs manufactured by Varian, Elekta and Siemens for their linacs are at present used for the visual inspection of the patientʹs set-up, and their use as transit dosimeters needs a special calibration that requires an effort for every beam. The aim of this paper has been the determination of a generalized EPID calibration that can be used by linacs of different manufacturers equipped with aSi EPIDs. The transit dosimetry method here proposed could supply for every linac the reconstruction in real time of the isocenter dose in patients with a tolerance level ranging between ±4% and ±6% depending on the treatment type and body district.