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Evaluation of beam matching accuracy among six linacs from the same vendor

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Abstract

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the dosimetric variation among six non-beam-matched Varian linacs using different techniques for the same plans. Six non-beam-matched Varian machines, comprising two Clinac iX, two 600 C/D (Unique), and two True Beam Tx photon 6 MV X-ray devices were acquired. Sixty patients with of head and neck (H&N; 30) and pelvic (30) treatment sites were chosen. For all 60 patients, three-dimensional conformal radiotherapy (3DCRT), intensity-modulated radiotherapy (IMRT), and volumetric-modulated radiotherapy (VMAT) plans were generated for the Clinac iX-1 device; all plans were migrated to the remaining machines, using the eclipse treatment planning system without any modification. The dosimetric variation among the six machines for each target volume and organ at risk was recorded and analyzed. In H&N cases, the maximum variation among the six machines with 3DCRT, IMRT, and VMAT was 2.57%, 2.6%, and 2.6%, respectively. In pelvic cases, the maximum variation among the six machines with 3DCRT, IMRT, and VMAT was 2.2%, 1.95%, and 2.05%, respectively. Our overall results show that dosimetric variation, while interchanging the plans among the six machines at phantom and patient levels, remains within the limits of clinical acceptability. The noted variation was not correlated with any of these treatment techniques: 3DCRT, IMRT, or VMAT.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Medical Physics, Apollo CBCC Hospitals, Gandhinagar, Gujarat, 382428, India

    Chockkalingam Krishnappan & Madhan Kumar Gunasekaran

  2. School of Advanced Sciences, Vellore Institute of Technology, Vellore, Tamilnadu, India

    Chockkalingam Krishnappan, Chandrasekaran Anu Radha, Karunakaran Balaji, Prasanna Kumar Mani & Velayudham Ramasubramanian

  3. Department of Radiation Oncology, Glengales Global Hospitals, Chennai, Tamilnadu, India

    Karunakaran Balaji

  4. Department of Medical Physics, Sanjeevani CBCC Cancer Hospital, Raipur, Chhattisgarh, India

    Karunakaran Balaji

  5. Department of Radiation Oncology, Apollo Hospitals, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India

    Prasanna Kumar Mani

  6. Department of Medical Physics, CHL CBCC Cancer Centre, Indore, Madhya Pradesh, India

    Vendhan Subramani

  7. Department of Radiation Oncology, GVN Hospitals, Tiruchirappalli, Tamilnadu, India

    Velmurugan Thanigaimalai

Authors
  1. Chockkalingam Krishnappan
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  2. Chandrasekaran Anu Radha
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  3. Karunakaran Balaji
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  4. Prasanna Kumar Mani
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  5. Vendhan Subramani
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  6. Velmurugan Thanigaimalai
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  7. Madhan Kumar Gunasekaran
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  8. Velayudham Ramasubramanian
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Chockkalingam Krishnappan.

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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Statement of human rights

This study has been approved by the appropriate Institutional Review Board (IRB) and has been performed in accordance with the ethical standards as laid down in the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

Ethics approval

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the Institutional Review Board (IRB) and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

Research involving animals

This study did not use animals for any experiments.

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For this type of retrospective study, formal consent is not required in our Institution.

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Krishnappan, C., Radha, C.A., Balaji, K. et al. Evaluation of beam matching accuracy among six linacs from the same vendor. Radiol Phys Technol 11, 423–433 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12194-018-0480-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12194-018-0480-3

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