Dose verification and calibration of the Cyberknife® by EPR/alanine dosimetry

Absolute calibration of the Gamma Knife® Perfexion™ and delivered dose verification using EPR/alanine dosimetry

“…As they are completely surrounded by ABS material to insure homogeneity of the environment, the dose measured in such conditions is an absorbed dose in alanine inside an ABS environment. To increase statistic quality, nine measurements are done for four irradiations durations (4,8,11, and 15 min). An absolute calibration implies a method allowing expressing results in terms of absorbed dose to water, inside a water environment, and in the TRS 398 reference conditions.…”

“…[7][8][9][10] Moreover, the LNHB has already carried out such studies for innovative radiotherapy techniques like Cyberknife or Tomotherapy. 11,12 Thanks to the shape and dimensions of alanine dosimeters, they can be used for small beams. Alanine dosimeters have interesting advantages: measures are at solid state and nondestructive, their responses are almost independent on the dose rate and energy of radiotherapy photon beams and their signal is stable in time (signal decreases less than 1% per year).…”

Different dosimeters/detectors used in small-field dosimetry: Pros and cons

“…[ 31 93 94 ] Recently, alanine has been used to verify advanced radiotherapy techniques such as IMRT and radiosurgery. [ 95 96 ]…”

A blind test of the alanine dosimetry secondary standard of the PTB conducted by the BIPM

“…with doses lower than 10 Gy. In recent years, advanced therapy modalities such as the cyberknife have also been checked using alanine dosimetry [8]. Within the framework of a quality assurance project in Belgium, a large fraction of the Belgian therapy centres participated in a dosimetry audit using alanine/ESR between 2009 and 2011 [9].…”