A quality assurance device for the accuracy of the isocentres of teletherapy and simulation machines

Abstract

A new quality assurance device has been designed to measure the location and wobble of the radiation isocentre of linacs and simulation machines as a function of gantry rotation. The radiation isocentre is the intersection in space of the central x rays of a linac or simulation machine at different gantry angles. Six radio-opaque markers 1 mm in size are embedded in a radio-transparent calibration object (specifically, a hollowed cube) in such a way that the markers are non-coplanar and uniquely identifiable in radiographic projections. The projective radiographs are obtained on the films held by the film holder attached to the gantry during the QA procedure. The marker positions of the calibration object define a known 3D reference frame, and their image positions on each radiograph determine the projective (3D to 2D matrix) transformation for that radiograph. Once the transformation is found, a 3D ray from the radiation source to any radiograph pixel becomes known. The radiographic pixels are coordinated (positioned and scaled) with respect to the projected image of radio-opaque fiducial cross-hairs fixed to a block tray and thus to the gantry. We select the central ray to correspond to the radiographic pixel whose rays at different gantry angles intersect in the smallest spatial domain. That pixel is found by a spiral search in the radiograph outward from the image of the radio-opaque cross-hair intersection. The wobble of the isocentre is defined by the set of points (on the central rays) at closest approach to the isocentre. The device was tested and compared with commercially available QA devices. It is able to locate the isocentre to within 0.5 mm. The offset of this derived radiation isocentre from the intersection of the positioning lasers can be found. To do this, the calibration object is initially placed so that the laser intersection point falls on a seventh radio-opaque marker near the centre of the hollow cube calibration object. The seventh marker is embedded in a thin radio-transparent rod that diagonally spans the hollowed space.