Abstract
BACKGROUND: The integration of MRI-guidance and proton therapy is a current research topic. Proton therapy with the patient being placed inside an in-beam MR scanner would require the presence of its static magnetic ( B0 ) field to be taken into account in dose calculation and treatment planning. Therefore, dosimetric tools are needed to characterize dose distributions in presence of the B0 field of the MR scanner. Furthermore, patient-specific quality assurance (QA) and treatment plan verification measurements should also be performed within the magnetic field. PURPOSE: In this work, the PTW Octavius 1500 MR ionization chamber array was characterized experimentally and tested for its suitability as a dosimetric tool for beam characterization and QA in MRI-guided proton therapy. METHODS: The dose rate response, response homogeneity and effective measurement depth of the detector were determined in experiments with scanned proton beams delivered by a horizontal beamline at OncoRay, Dresden. A patient-specific QA test including gamma analysis was performed for a realistic proton patient treatment plan at two different distances from the beam nozzle. In addition, experiments were performed in a 0.32 T in-beam MR scanner. These included measurements of square reference scanning patterns at different proton energies as well as measurements of a two-field patient treatment plan at different water equivalent depths. RESULTS: The dose rate response was found to be linear up to 80 Gy/min . The effective measurement depth was determined to be 8.1 ± 0.2 mm . The response homogeneity was found to be suitable for the verification of proton treatment plans. The patient-specific QA test without magnetic field was satisfactory and also the measurements inside the 0.32 T in-beam MR scanner provided reasonable results. Their comparison allowed an assessment of the magnetic field effects on the dose distributions. CONCLUSIONS: Concluding from these tests, the Octavius 1500 MR was found to be suitable for use as a dosimetric tool in MRI-guided proton therapy.