An investigation of PRESAGE® 3D dosimetry for IMRT and VMAT radiation therapy treatment verification.

The purpose of this work was to characterize three formulations of PRESAGE(®) dosimeters (DEA-1, DEA-2, and DX) and to identify optimal readout timing and procedures for accurate in-house 3D dosimetry. The optimal formulation and procedure was then applied for the verification of an intensity modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) and a volumetric modulated arc therapy (VMAT) treatment technique. PRESAGE(®) formulations were studied for their temporal stability post-irradiation, sensitivity, and linearity of dose response. Dosimeters were read out using a high-resolution optical-CT scanner. Small volumes of PRESAGE(®) were irradiated to investigate possible differences in sensitivity for large and small volumes ('volume effect'). The optimal formulation and read-out technique was applied to the verification of two patient treatments: an IMRT plan and a VMAT plan. A gradual decrease in post-irradiation optical-density was observed in all formulations with DEA-1 exhibiting the best temporal stability with less than 4% variation between 2-22 h post-irradiation. A linear dose response at the 4 h time point was observed for all formulations with an R(2) value >0.99. A large volume effect was observed for DEA-1 with sensitivity of the large dosimeter being ~63% less than the sensitivity of the cuvettes. For the IMRT and VMAT treatments, the 3D gamma passing rates for 3%/3 mm criteria using absolute measured dose were 99.6 and 94.5% for the IMRT and VMAT treatments, respectively. In summary, this work shows that accurate 3D dosimetry is possible with all three PRESAGE(®) formulations. The optimal imaging windows post-irradiation were 3-24 h, 2-6 h, and immediately for the DEA-1, DEA-2, and DX formulations, respectively. Because of the large volume effect, small volume cuvettes are not yet a reliable method for calibration of larger dosimeters to absolute dose. Finally, PRESAGE(®) is observed to be a useful method of 3D verification when careful consideration is given to the temporal stability and imaging protocols for the specific formulation used.