Comparison of the performance between portal dosimetry and a commercial two-dimensional array system on pretreatment quality assurance for volumetric-modulated arc and intensity-modulated radiation therapy

Abstract

The aim of this study was to compare the dosimetric performance and to evaluate the pretreatment quality assurance (QA) of a portal dosimetry and a commercial two-dimensional (2-D) array system. In the characteristics comparison study, the measured values for the dose linearity, dose rate response, reproducibility, and field size dependence for 6-MV photon beams were analyzed for both detector systems. To perform the qualitative evaluations of the 10 IMRT and the 10 VMAT plans, we used the Gamma index for quantifying the agreement between calculations and measurements. The performance estimates for both systems show that overall, minimal differences in the dosimetric characteristics exist between the Electron portal imaging device (EPID) and 2-D array system. In the qualitative analysis for pretreatment quality assurance, the EPID and 2-D array system yield similar passing rate results for the majority of clinical Intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) and Volumetric-modulated arc therapy (VMAT) cases. These results were satisfactory for IMRT and VMAT fields and were within the acceptable criteria of γ%≤1, γ _avg <0.5. The EPDI and the 2-D array systems showed comparable dosimetric results. In this study, the results revealed both systems to be suitable for patient-specific QA measurements for IMRT and VMAT. We conclude that, depending on the status of clinic, both systems can be used interchangeably for routine pretreatment QA.