Development of a 3-dimensional Dosimetry System for Leksell Gamma Knife Perfexion

The purpose of our study is to develop a new, 3-dimensional dosimetry system to verify the accuracy of dose deliveries in Leksell Gamma Knife Perfexion (LGKP) (Elekta, Norcross, GA, USA). The instrument consists of a moving head phantom, an embedded thin active layer and a CCD camera system and was designed to be mounted to LGKP. As an active material concentrically located in the hemispheric head phantom, we choose Gafchromic EBT3 films and Gd2O2S: Tb phosphor sheets for dosimetric measurements. Also, to compensate for the lack of backscatter, we located a 1-cm-thick poly methyl methacrylate (PMMA) plate downstream of the active layer. The PMMA plate was transparent to scintillation light to reach the CCD with 1200 x 1200 pixels and a 5.2 mu m pitch. With this system, 300 images with a 0.2-mm slice gap were acquired under each of three collimator setups, i.e. 4-mm, 8-mm, and 16-mm, respectively. The 2D projected images taken by the CCD camera were compared with the dose distributions measured by the EBT3 films under the same conditions. All 2D distributions were normalized to the maximum values derived by fitting peaks for each collimator setup. The differences in the full widths at half maximum (FWHM) of 2D profiles between CCD images and film doses were measured to be less than 0.3-mm. The scanning task for all peak regions took less than three minutes with the new instrument. So it can be utilized as a QA tool for the Gamma knife radiosurgery system instead of film dosimetry, the use of which requires much more time and many more resources.