Dosimetric capabilities of the Iview GT portal imager using MCNP5 monte carlo simulations

This work is focused on developing a methodology to obtain portal dosimetry with an amorphous silicon electronic portal image device (a-Si EPID) used in radiotherapy by means of Monte Carlo simulations and experimental measures. Pixel intensity values from portal images have been compared with dose measured from an ionization chamber and dose calculated from Monte Carlo simulations. To this end, several images were acquired with the Elekta iView GT EPID using an attenuator phantom slab (10 cm thickness of solid water) and a 6 MeV photon energy beam with different monitor units settings (MU). The average pixel value in a region of interest (ROI) centered at the beam for each image was extracted and compared to dose measures performed with an ionization chamber. These parameters were found to be linearly related with the number of monitor units. Since MCNP5 simulations allow calculating the deposited dose in the ROI within the phosphor layer of the EPID model, we could compare the portal dose with the simulated transit dose in order to perform a treatment control.