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Backscatter factors are essential in the determination of radiation dose for kilovoltage X-ray beams. The accurate measurement of backscatter factors in water (B (W)) is difficult and published values are based largely on Monte Carlo calculations. A number of studies have found that the measurement of B (W) in the energy range from 50 to 300 kVp is possible using Gafchromic EBT film, but this film is no longer commercially available. In this work, we evaluated whether the newer Gafchromic EBT2 film is suitable for the determination of B (W) for kilovoltage X-ray beams. B (W) were measured with Gafchromic EBT2 film for beam qualities of 50, 100 and 280 kVp and field sizes of 2, 3, 4 and 6 cm diameter and compared with tabulated values published in the AAPM TG-61 protocol. We found that rotation of the film position during readout had a small but non-negligible effect on the optical density readings. The agreement between measured and published B (W) was better than 3%, with the largest difference of occurring for the 2 cm diameter field with the 50 kVp X-ray beam. However, these differences are consistent with the total estimated uncertainty for the measurements, as calculated by the ISO GUM. Our results demonstrate that Gafchromic EBT2 film is a suitable dosimeter for B (W) measurements for clinical kilovoltage X-ray beams.

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The field of telemedicine is in need of generic solutions that harness the power of small, easily carried computing devices to increase efficiency and decrease the likelihood of medical errors. Our study resolved to build a framework to bridge the gap between handheld and desktop solutions by developing an automated network protocol that wirelessly propagates application data and images prepared by a powerful workstation to handheld clients for storage, display and collaborative manipulation. To this end, we present the Mobile Active Medical Protocol (MAMP), a framework capable of nigh-effortlessly linking medical workstation solutions to corresponding control interfaces on handheld devices for remote storage, control and display. The ease-of-use, encapsulation and applicability of this automated solution is designed to provide significant benefits to the rapid development of telemedical solutions. Our results demonstrate that the design of this system allows an acceptable data transfer rate, a usable framerate for diagnostic solutions and enough flexibility to enable its use in a wide variety of cases. To this end, we also present a large-scale multi-modality image viewer as an example application based on the MAMP.