Determining the optimal dosimetric leaf gap setting for rounded leaf-end multileaf collimator systems by simple test fields

Individual QA for IMRT/VMAT plans is required by protocols. Sometimes plans cannot pass the institute's QA criteria. For the Eclipse treatment planning system (TPS) with rounded leaf-end multileaf collimator (MLC), one practical way to improve the agreement of planned and delivered doses is to tune the value of dosimetric leaf gap (DLG) in the TPS from the measured DLG. We propose that this step may be necessary due to the complexity of the MLC system, including dosimetry of small fields and the tongue-and-groove (T&G) effects, and report our use of test fields to obtain linac-specific optimal DLGs in TPSs. More than 20 original patient plans were reoptimized with the linac-specific optimal DLG value. We examined the distribution of gaps and T&G extensions in typical patient plans and the effect of using the optimal DLG on the distribution. The QA pass rate of patient plans using the optimal DLG was investigated. The dose-volume histograms (DVHs) of targets and organs at risk were checked. We tested three MLC systems (Varian millennium 120 MLC, high-definition 120 MLC, and Siemens 160 MLC) installed in four Varian linear accelerators (linacs) (TrueBEAM STx, Trilogy, Clinac 2300 iX, and Clinac 21 EX) and 1 Siemens linac (Artiste). With an optimal DLG, the individual QA for all those patient plans passed the institute's criteria (95% in DTA test or gamma test with 3%/3 mm/10%), even though most of these plans had failed to pass QA when using original DLGs optimized from typical patient plans or from the optimization process (automodeler) of Pinnacle TPS. Using either our optimal DLG or one optimized from typical patient plans or from the Pinnacle optimization process yielded similar DVHs.