TURKISH JOURNAL OF ONCOLOGY 2012 , Vol 27 , Num 2
The measurement of entrance and exit doses with in-vivo dosimetry in head and neck cancers and comparison with treatment planning doses
Burçin PAİDAR,1 Emin TAVLAYAN,2 Nezehat OLACAK,2 Mustafa ESASSOLAK,2 Bülent Arif ARAS2
1İzmir Özel Onkomer Onkoloji Merkezi, Radyofizik, İzmir
2Ege Üniversitesi Tıp Fakültesi, Radyasyon Onkolojisi Anabilim Dalı, Tıbbi Radyofizik, İzmir
OBJECTIVES
We aimed to measure entrance-exit doses using in-vivo dosimetry for head and neck cancer patients and to compare with planning system doses, to facilitate determination of treatment accuracy.

METHODS
Three diodes were calibrated using water equivalent phantom. Correction factors had been previously assessed for in-vivo diodes and applied to the readings. Dose measurements were performed on 30 treatment setups for 3 patients treated with isocentric, asymmetric left-right two lateral and supraclavicular fields using 6MV. Measured doses were compared with expected doses.

RESULTS
The results indicated a small acceptable deviation from expected doses. It was found that the mean deviations for entrance and exit doses were 2.3% and 1.9%, respectively. The deviation in the delivered dose is well within the 5% International Commission on Radiation Units and Measurements (ICRU) recommendation, and thus treatment doses are determined to be in accordance with the planning system doses.

CONCLUSION
It has been shown that in-vivo dosimetry performed using diodes is a reliable and high-precision method for patient dose control. Keywords : Head and neck cancers; in-vivo diode dosimetry; radiotherapy