BJR
HOME HELP FEEDBACK SUBSCRIPTIONS ARCHIVE SEARCH TABLE OF CONTENTS
First published online April 27, 2009
British Journal of Radiology (2009) 82, 827-838
© 2009 British Institute of Radiology
doi: 10.1259/bjr/98497325
This Article
Right arrow Figures Only
Right arrow Full Text
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Services
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrow reprints & permissions
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by PATEL, I
Right arrow Articles by KIRBY, M C
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by PATEL, I
Right arrow Articles by KIRBY, M C

The use of computed radiography for routine linear accelerator and simulator quality control

I PATEL, MSc, CSci, MIPEM 1 T NATARAJAN, MSc 2 S S HASSAN, MSc, MIPEM 1 and M C KIRBY, PhD, CSci, MIPEM 3

1 North Western Medical Physics, Radiotherapy Department, Rosemere Cancer Centre, Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Preston, 2 Radiotherapy Physics Group, Department of Medical Physics and Clinical Engineering, Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals NHS Trust, Oxford, and 3 North Western Medical Physics, The Christie NHS Foundation Trust, Manchester, UK

Correspondence: I Patel, North Western Medical Physics, Radiotherapy Department, Rosemere Cancer Centre, Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Preston, UK. E-mail: imran.patel{at}lthtr.nhs.uk

Computed radiography (CR) systems were originally developed for the purpose of clinical imaging, and there has been much work published on its effectiveness as a film replacement for this end. However, there has been little published on its use for routine linear accelerator and simulator quality control, and therefore we have evaluated the use of the Kodak 2000RT system with large Agfa CR plates as a replacement for film for this function. A prerequisite for any such use is a detailed understanding of the system behaviour, hence characteristics such as spatial uniformity of response, reproducibility of spatial accuracy, plate signal decay with time and the dose–response of plates were investigated. Finally, a comparison of results obtained using CR for the measurement of radiation field dimensions was made against those from radiographic film, and found to be in agreement within 0.1 mm (mean difference for high-resolution images, 0.3 mm root mean square difference) for megavoltage images and 0.3 mm (maximum difference) for simulator images. In conclusion, the CR system has been shown to be a good alternative to radiographic film for routine quality control of linear accelerators and simulators.






HOME HELP FEEDBACK SUBSCRIPTIONS ARCHIVE SEARCH TABLE OF CONTENTS
BJR DMFR IMAGING  ALL BIR JOURNALS 
Copyright © 2009 by the British Institute of Radiology.