Application of radiochromic film for quality assurance in the heavy-ion beam scanning irradiation system at HIMAC

For the quality assurance (QA) of therapeutic scanned carbon-ion beams, QA tool having high spatial resolution is required. The radiochromic film (such as Gafchromic EBT2 film model) is a very useful tool because of its high spatial resolution, self-development, and near tissue equivalence. However, for a complex field in carbon-ion therapy, it is difficult to unambiguously determine the dose from the measured net optical density (OD). As a first approach, we investigated the response of EBT2 to carbon-ion beam at the Heavy Ion Medical Accelerator in Chiba (HIMAC) in Japan. Based on the measured results, we performed QA measurements independently of dose. We verified the QA measurements by EBT2 by comparing the ionization chamber and the fluorescent screen. The results obtained with EBT2 were in good agreement with those obtained with the other detector. In addition, to test the use in a complex field, we verified the OD distributions for moving and static target by means of a gamma index analysis. As a result, we confirmed that EBT2 could be used as a part of QA procedures for therapeutic scanned carbon-ion beams. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.