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A revision of proton machine quality assurance for wobbled-proton-beam therapy

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Abstract

Periodic checks for proton machine quality assurance (QA) are significant for machine users safely and accurately to provide proton-beam treatment for cancer. Our aim in this study was to describe a revision to proton machine QA procedures for wobbled-proton-beam therapy at the Shizuoka Cancer Center (SCC) in Japan. The previous daily, monthly, and annual QA procedures were determined by reference to our past operational experience and to QA papers for medical accelerators. The revised QA procedures were initiated in May 2011 after preliminary measurements to decide baselines for the QA procedures. This paper presents the proton machine QA procedures and the results of representative QA measurements. Three action levels were decided on by reference to the American Association of Physicists in Medicine Task Group 142 report. Tolerances of inspection action were decided on based on the provisional operational results and actual fluctuations of the QA measurement for a year, and those of scheduled action and stop-treatment action were determined by reference to the machine QA papers and those of the inspection action. No deviation from the tolerance of the scheduled action has been observed so far. Although a few QA procedures exceeded the tolerance of the inspection action, these excesses were resolved by inspection and improvement of the respective measuring procedure within the designated QA time. Hereafter, the proton machine QA procedures proposed in this study will be performed continuously at the SCC to assure patient safety and accurate operation of proton therapy.

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Acknowledgments

Drs. Shuichi Ozawa and Chie Toramatsu are gratefully acknowledged for fruitful discussions about machine QA procedures. This work was partially supported by the Association for Nuclear Technology in Medicine. We thank all members of the Proton Therapy Division at the Shizuoka Cancer Center and on-site staff members of the Mitsubishi Electric Corporation for their skillful support.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Proton Therapy Division, Shizuoka Cancer Center Research Institute, 1007 Shimonagakubo, Nagaizumi-cho, Shizuoka, 411-8777, Japan

    Yuki Kase, Haruo Yamashita & Shigeyuki Murayama

  2. Proton Therapy Division, Shizuoka Cancer Center Hospital, 1007 Shimonagakubo, Nagaizumi-cho, Shizuoka, 411-8777, Japan

    Yuki Kase, Haruo Yamashita, Masumi Numano, Hiroshi Fuji & Shigeyuki Murayama

Authors
  1. Yuki Kase
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  2. Haruo Yamashita
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  3. Masumi Numano
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  4. Hiroshi Fuji
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  5. Shigeyuki Murayama
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Yuki Kase.

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Kase, Y., Yamashita, H., Numano, M. et al. A revision of proton machine quality assurance for wobbled-proton-beam therapy. Radiol Phys Technol 6, 444–452 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12194-013-0217-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12194-013-0217-2

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