Development of two-dimensional thermoluminescent dosimetry for cancer ion therapy quality assurance
Lead time: 2010 - 2013
Research conducted as part of the Ph.D. dissertation of Mr Jan Gajewski, M.Sc., Eng.
The basis of current radiotherapy is providing high doses of irradiation to the target volume (tumour) and minimizing the dose absorbed by the healthy tissue surrounding the tumour. Current radiotherapy techniques, particularly ion therapy, allow obtaining high dose gradients and its accurate delivery to the given point. Current dosimetry techniques allow only to estimate the compliance between therapy plan and real dose absorbed by the patient. Two-dimensional thermoluminescent dosimetry techniques have been developed at IFJ PAN over several years, offering a great solution for the problem of high dose gradients measurement in ion radiotherapy.
The thermoluminescence phenomenon consists in light emission through the thermoluminescent material during its heating, after it previously absorbed an irradiation dose. Two-dimensional, thermoluminescent dosimetry technique (2D TL), being developed at IFJ PAN, is based on foil detectors which are a sinter of a thermoluminescent material with a polymer. Heating such foil and monitoring the emitted light with camera, we obtain two-dimensional distribution of a dose absorbed by a detector. Two readers for the detectors read-out were developed at IFJ PAN. Smaller one - a laboratory reader - able to read 5 x 5 cm2 foils and bigger one – a clinical reader - which is able to read foils of dimensions up to 20 x 20 cm2.
Dedicated software to control the reader operation and image analysis (FlatView) has also been in-house developed.
We believe that the developed two-dimensional thermoluminescent techniques will find many applications in such fields as:
- health – it is planned to apply 2D TL techniques as standars methods for cancer ion therapy quality control,
- industry - it is possible to apply a dosimetry system for material research in industry
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| Two-dimensional detectors | A proton beam dose distribution | Downloads |
Two-dimensional thermoluminescent dosimetry developed at IFJ PAN is an innovative and modern approach to a problem of an irradiation dose spatial distribution measurement. Applying this technology in cancer radiotherapy will enable treating patients more effectively, while reducing the risk of possible side effects.