GEC-ESTRO ACROP recommendations on calibration and traceability of HE HDR-PDR photon-emitting brachytherapy sources at the hospital level

The vast majority of radiotherapy departments in Europe using brachytherapy (BT) perform temporary implants of high-or pulsed-dose rate (HDR-PDR) sources with photon energies higher than 50 keV. Such techniques are successfully applied to diverse pathologies and clinical scenarios. These recommen-dations are the result of Working Package 21 (WP-21) initiated within the BRAchytherapy PHYsics Quality Assurance System (BRAPHYQS) GEC-ESTRO working group with a focus on HDR-PDR source cal-ibration. They provide guidance on the calibration of such sources, including practical aspects and issues not specifically accounted for in well-accepted societal recommendations, complementing the BRAPHYQS WP-18 Report dedicated to low energy BT photon emitting sources (seeds). The aim of this report is to provide a European-wide standard in HDR-PDR BT source calibration at the hospital level to maintain high quality patient treatments. (c) 2022 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. Radiotherapy and Oncology 176 (2022) 108-117 This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).