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•A gel dosimeter formulation with tunable sensitivity was tested.•Reliability of gel dosimetry system was verified on 54 stereotactic treatment plans.•Validation campaign was based on ...comparison with a commercial dosimetric system.•Gel dosimeters provide comparable results with reference dosimetric system.•Applicability of gels for high resolution volumetric QA was verified.
Complex stereotactic radiotherapy treatment plans require prior verification. A gel dosimetry system was developed and tested to serve as a high-resolution 3D dosimeter for Quality Assurance (QA) purposes.
A modified version of a polyacrylamide polymer gel dosimeter based on chemical response inhibition was employed. Different sample geometries (cuvettes and phantoms) were manufactured for calibration and QA acquisitions. Irradiations were performed with a Varian Trilogy linac, and analyses of irradiated gel dosimeters were performed via MRI with a 1.5 T Philips Achieva at 1 mm3 or 2 mm3 isotropic spatial resolution. To assess reliability of polymer gel data, 54 stereotactic clinical treatment plans were delivered both on dosimetric gel phantoms and on the Delta4 dosimeter. Results from the two devices were evaluated through a global gamma index over a range of acceptance criteria and compared with each other.
A quantitative and tunable control of dosimetric gel response sensitivity was achieved through chemical inhibition. An optimized MRI analysis protocol allowed to acquire high resolution phantom dose data in timeframes of ≈ 1 h. Conversion of gel dosimeter data into absorbed dose was achieved through internal calibration. Polymer gel dosimeters (2 mm3 resolution) and Delta4 presented an agreement within 4.8 % and 2.7 % at the 3 %/1 mm and 2 %/2 mm gamma criteria, respectively.
Gel dosimeters appear as promising tools for high resolution 3D QA. Added complexity of the gel dosimetry protocol may be justifiable in case of small target volumes and steep dose gradients.
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