Abstract
Quality control of therapeutic photon beams in the form of postal dose audits based on passive dosemeters is widely used in photon radiotherapy. On the other hand, no standardised dosimetry audit programme for proton centres has been established in Europe so far. We evaluated alanine/EPR dosimetry systems developed at the Istituto Superiore di Sanità (Italy), the Hasselt Universiteit (Belgium) and the Henryk Niewodniczanski Institute of Nuclear Physics Polish Academy of Sciences (Poland) for their applicability as a potential tool for routine mailed dose audits of passively scattered therapeutic proton beams. The evaluation was carried out in the form of an intercomparison. Dosemeters were irradiated in the 70 MeV proton beam at ocular proton therapy facility in the Cyclotron Centre Bronowice at the Henryk Niewodniczanski Institute of Nuclear Physics Polish Academy of Sciences in Krakow. A very good agreement was found between the dose measured by three laboratories and the delivered dose determined with an ionisation chamber. This, together with the inherent properties of alanine, such as non-destructive readout, tissue equivalence, weak energy dependence, dose rate independence and insignificant fading, makes alanine a good candidate for a dosemeter used in postal auditing in proton ocular radiotherapy.