Optical cone beam computed tomography (CBCT) using a broad beam and CCD camera is a fast method for densitometry of 3D optical gel dosimeters. However, diffuse light sources introduce considerable stray light into the imaging system, leading to underestimation of attenuation coefficients and non-uniformities in CT images unless corrections are applied to each projection image. In this study, the light source of a commercial optical CT scanner is replaced with a convergent cone beam source consisting of almost exclusively image forming primary rays. The convergent source is achieved using a small isotropic source and a Fresnel lens. To characterize stray light effects, full-field cone beam CT imaging is compared to fan beam CT (FBCT) using a 1 cm high fan beam aperture centered on the optic axis of the system. Attenuating liquids are scanned within a large 96 mm diameter uniform phantom and in a small 13.5 mm diameter finger phantom. For the uniform phantom, cone and fan beam CT attenuation coefficients agree within a maximum deviation of (1  ±  2)% between mean values over a wide range from 0.036 to 0.43 cm(-1). For the finger phantom, agreement is found with a maximum deviation of (4  ±  2)% between mean values over a range of 0.1-0.47 cm(-1). With the convergent source, artifacts associated with refractive index mismatch and vessel optical features are more pronounced. Further optimization of the source size to achieve a balance between quantitative accuracy and artifact reduction should enable practical, accurate 3D dosimetry, avoiding time consuming 3D scatter measurements.

Optical cone-beam computed tomographic (CBCT) scanning of 3D radiochromic dosimeters may provide a practical method for 3D dose verification in radiation therapy. However, in cone-beam geometry stray light contaminates the projection images, degrading the accuracy of reconstructed linear attenuation coefficients. Stray light was measured using a beam pass aperture array (BPA) and structured illumination methods. The stray-to-primary ray ratio (SPR) along the central axis was found to be 0.24 for a 5% gelatin hydrogel, representative of radiochromic hydrogels. The scanner was modified by moving the spectral filter from the detector to the source, changing the light's spatial fluence pattern and lowering the acceptance angle by extending distance between the source and object. These modifications reduced the SPR significantly from 0.24 to 0.06. The accuracy of the reconstructed linear attenuation coefficients for uniform carbon black liquids was compared to independent spectrometer measurements. Reducing the stray light increased the range of accurate transmission readings. In order to evaluate scanner performance for the more challenging application to small field dosimetry, a carbon black finger gel phantom was prepared. Reconstructions of the phantom from CBCT and fan-beam CT scans were compared. The modified source resulted in improved agreement. Subtraction of residual stray light, measured with BPA or structured illumination from each projection further improved agreement. Structured illumination was superior to BPA for measuring stray light for the smaller 1.2 and 0.5 cm diameter phantom fingers. At the costs of doubling the scanner size and tripling the number of scans, CBCT reconstructions of low-scattering hydrogel dosimeters agreed with those of fan-beam CT scans.

The fiducial-based ray path measurement scheme, coupled with an iterative reconstruction algorithm, enabled optical CT scanning of PRESAGE® dosimeters immersed in mismatched refractive index solutions. However, improvements to PRESAGE® dose response uniformity are required.

Overall, the results indicate that OSC-TV is a suitable reconstruction algorithm for gel dosimetry, provided care is taken in setting the regularization parameter when reconstructing objects that are small compared to the scanner field of view.

Stray light causes artifacts in optical computed tomography (CT) that negatively affect the accuracy of radiation dosimetry in gels or solids. Scatter effects are exacerbated by a large dosimeter volume, which is desirable for direct verification of modern radiotherapy treatment plans such as multiple-isocenter radiosurgery. The goal in this study was to design and characterize an optical CT system that achieves high accuracy primary transmission measurements through effective stray light rejection, while maintaining sufficient scan speed for practical application. We present an optical imaging platform that uses a galvanometer mirror for horizontal scanning, and a translation stage for vertical movement of a laser beam and small area detector for minimal stray light production and acceptance. This is coupled with a custom lens-shaped optical CT aquarium for parallel ray sampling of projections. The scanner images 15 cm diameter, 12 cm height cylindrical volumes at 0.33 mm resolution in approximately 30 min. Attenuation coefficients reconstructed from CT scans agreed with independent cuvette measurements within 2% for both absorbing and scattering solutions as well as small 1.25 cm diameter absorbing phantoms placed within a large, scattering medium that mimics gel. Excellent linearity between the optical CT scanner and the independent measurement was observed for solutions with between 90% and 2% transmission. These results indicate that the scanner should achieve highly accurate dosimetry of large volume dosimeters in a reasonable timeframe for clinical application to radiotherapy dose verification procedures.