Dosimetry in brain tumor phantom at 15 MV 3D conformal radiation therapy

Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) is the most common, aggressive, highly malignant and infiltrative of all brain tumors with low rate of control. The main goal of this work was to evaluate the spatial dose distribution into a GBM simulator inside a head phantom exposed to a 15 MV 3D conformal radiation therapy in order to validate internal doses. A head and neck phantom developed by the Ionizing Radiation Research Group (NRI) was used on the experiments. Such phantom holds the following synthetic structures: brain and spinal cord, skull, cervical and thoracic vertebrae, jaw, hyoid bone, laryngeal cartilages, head and neck muscles and skin. Computer tomography (CT) of the simulator was taken, capturing a set of contrasted references. Therapy Radiation planning (TPS) was performed based on those CT images, satisfying a 200 cGy prescribed dose split in three irradiation fields. The TPS assumed 97% of prescribed dose cover the prescribed treatment volume (PTV). Radiochromic films in a solid water phantom provided dose response as a function of optical density. Spatial dosimetric distribution was generated by radiochromic film samples at coronal, sagittal-anterior and sagittal-posterior positions, inserted into tumor simulator and brain. The spatial dose profiles held 70 to 120% of the prescribed dose. In spite of the stratified profile, as opposed to the smooth dose profile from TPS, the tumor internal doses were within a 5% deviation from 214.4 cGy evaluated by TPS. 83.2% of the points with a gamma value of less than 1 (3%/3mm) for TPS and experimental values, respectively. At the tumor, measured at coronal section, a few dark spots in the film caused the appearance of outlier points in 13-15% of dose deviation percentage. And, as final conclusion, such dosimeter choice and the physical anthropomorphic and anthropometric phantom provided an efficient method for validating radiotherapy protocols.