A method is described of calculating the beam profiles, depth doses and output factors for asymmetric fields of radiation produced by linear accelerators with independent jaws. Values are calculated from data measured for symmetric fields. The only additional measurements required are a beam profile in air across the diagonal of the largest field size, and data on the radial variation of beam quality. Measurements on beams of 8 MV x-rays show that beam hardening in the Rattening filter can alter the beam profiles by several per cent.

The current UK code of practice for high-energy photon therapy dosimetry (Lillicrap et al 1990 Phys. Med. Biol. 35 1355-60) gives instructions for measuring absorbed dose to water under reference conditions for megavoltage photons. The reference conditions and the index used to specify beam quality require that a machine be able to set a 10 cm × 10 cm field at the point of measurement. TomoTherapy machines have a maximum collimator setting of 5 cm × 40 cm at a source to axis distance of 85 cm, making it impossible for users of these machines to follow the code. This addendum addresses the specification of reference irradiation geometries, the choice of ionization chambers and the determination of dosimetry corrections, the derivation of absorbed dose to water calibration factors and choice of appropriate chamber correction factors, for carrying out reference dosimetry measurements on TomoTherapy machines. The preferred secondary standard chamber remains the NE2611 chamber, which with its associated secondary standard electrometer, is calibrated at the NPL through the standard calibration service for MV photon beams produced on linear accelerators with conventional flattening filters. Procedures are given for the derivation of a beam quality index specific to the TomoTherapy beam that can be used in the determination of a calibration coefficient for the secondary standard chamber from its calibration certificate provided by the NPL. The recommended method of transfer from secondary standard to field instrument is in a static beam, at a depth of 5 cm, by sequential substitution or by simultaneous side by side irradiation in either a water phantom or a water-equivalent solid phantom. Guidance is given on the use of a field instrument in reference fields.

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Helical tomotherapy represents the state of the art in intensity modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) and image guided adaptive radiotherapy (IGAR). This work is aimed at carrying out Monte Carlo (MC) dose calculations of tomotherapy deliveries to real phantom and virtual phantom/patient CT data. All MC calculations are performed with the EGSnrc‐based MC simulation codes, BEAMnrc and DOSXYZnrc. Various MC parameters and variance reduction techniques were investigated and optimized. Single projection simulations are carried out to get percent depth dose (PDD) and beam profiles at various depths and lateral field dimensions. Simulations are compared with measured results taken with an A1SL ionization chamber in a water tank. A complex delivery was simulated with the 64 leaf binary multileaf collimator (MLC) modulating at fixed radiation angle for a solid water phantom. Further, a rotational treatment plan to a cheese phantom CT data set was also simulated. Simulations are performed by taking the sinogram (leaf opening vs. time) of the treatment plan and decomposing it into different projections, each of which is segmented further into several opening configurations with different MLC settings and weights, which corresponded to leaf opening time. Then the projection is simulated with the result of sum of all of the opening configurations, and the overall rotational treatment is simulated with the result of sum of all of the projection simulations. Measured and simulated profiles and PDDs are found agree with each other well. Preliminary simulations of full treatment plans are also presented.

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