To validate the feasibility of electronic portal imaging device (EPID)- based in vivo dosimetry system for the verification of small animal radiation research
METHODS
The workflow can be divided into three steps. In the first part, external body of the rat phantom was
modeled based on the computed tomography (CT) dataset of a real rat previously scanned for another
radiobiological experiment and the structure set was exported to 3D Slicer program to convert DICOM
file to. stl file format. Tissue-equivalent rat phantom was, then, printed using Makerbot Replicator Z18
3D-printer. In the second part, treatment plans were created for different anatomical sites including
whole brain and total lung irradiation using Elekta Versa HD linear accelerator. In the last part, measurements
were performed with EPID-based 3D in vivo dosimetry system. During the analysis, 3D ?
analysis method was used and ? evaluation criteria were set to 3 mm distance-to-agreement and 3% dose
differences for local dose.
RESULTS
According to our analysis, EPID measurement for each modality and anatomical site met the protocol
value except for % γ ≤ 1 and γ mean values for total lung irradiation, but both of these parameters met
the proposed minor variation criteria.
CONCLUSION
Implementation of EPID-based 3D in vivo dosimetry for preclinical radiation research with small animals
seems to be feasible.