Determination of Correction Factors for Small Field Based on Measurement and Numerical Calculation using Cylindrical Ionization Chambers

TL;DR

This paper presents a new method combining measurement and numerical calculation to determine correction factors for small photon fields using cylindrical ionization chambers, showing results comparable to Monte Carlo simulations.

Contribution

A novel combined measurement and deconvolution numerical method for calculating correction factors in small photon fields, validated against Monte Carlo results.

Findings

Correction factors closely match Monte Carlo simulations.

The method is applicable in clinical settings.

Provides accurate correction factors for various chambers.

Abstract

We studied the investigation of volume averaging effect for air-filled cylindrical ionization chambers to determine correction factors in small photon field for the given chamber. As a method, we measured output factors using several cylindrical ionization chambers and calculated with mathematical method similar to deconvolution in which we modeled non-constant and inhomogeneous exposure function in the cavity of chamber. The parameters in exposure function and correction factors were determined by solving a system of equations we developed with measurement data and geometry of the given chamber. Correction factors (CFs) we had found are very similar to that from Monte Carlo (MC) simulation. For example, CFs in this study were computed as 1.116 for PTW31010, and 1.0225 for PTW31016, while CFs from MC were reported as approximately between 1.17 and 1.20 for PTW31010, and between 1.02 and 1.06 for PTW31016 in of 6MV photon beam . Furthermore, the result from the method of deconvolution combined with MC for chamber response function, also showed similar CF for PTW 30013, which was reported as 2.29 and 1.54 in and filed size respectively. The CFs from our method provided similarly as 2.42 and 1.54. In addition, we reported CFs for PTW30013, PTW31010, PTW31016, IBA FC23-C, and IBA CC13. As a consequence, we suggested a newly developed method to measure correct output factor using the fact that inhomogeneous exposure, force a volume averaging effect in a cavity of air filled cylindrical ionization chamber. The result from this method is very similar to that from MC simulation. The method we developed can easily be applied to clinic.