Behavior of the Siemens Virtual Wedge™ following an interruption to beam delivery

Investigations were made into the beam profile shape and dose delivered by the Siemens Virtual Wedge™ under standard operational conditions compared with those following delivery interruption on two Siemens Primus linear accelerators (Type 7445 and 8067) running different versions of control software (7.2 and 7.0, respectively). The shape of the Virtual Wedge™ profiles was found to be unaffected by beam delivery interruption. An increase in the dose delivered to the central axis was found when delivery was interrupted and subsequently resumed using information recorded in a recall data file on one of the accelerators. This dose increase was attributed to a difference in delivered monitor units recorded in the recall data file compared to those displayed on the linear accelerator control console. PACS number(s): 87.53.–j, 87.52.–g