Dosimetric characteristics of a new linear accelerator under gated operation

Abstract

Respiratory gated radiotherapy may allow reduction of the treatment margins, thus sparing healthy tissues and/or allowing dose escalation to the tumor. However, current commissioning and quality assurance of linear accelerators does not include evaluation of gated delivery. The purpose of this study was to test gated photon delivery of a Siemens ONCOR Avant-Garde linear accelerator. Dosimeric characteristics for gated and non-gated delivery of 6 MV and 15 MV photons were compared for the range of doses, dose rates and for several gating regimes. Dose profiles were also compared using Kodak EDR2 and X-omat V films for 6 MV and 15 MV photons for several dose rates and gating regimes. Results showed that deviation is less than or equal to 0.6% for all dose levels evaluated with the exception of the lowest dose delivered at 25 MU at an unrealistically high gating frequency of 0.5 Hz. At 400 MU, dose profile deviations along the central axes in inplane and crossplane directions within 80% of the field size are below 0.7%. No unequivocally detectable dose profile deviation was observed for 50 MU. Based on the comparison with widely accepted standards for conventional delivery, our results indicate that this linac is well suited for gated delivery of non-dynamic fields.