ABSTRACT
Until recently, radiotherapy in medicine has been practiced with the concept that the radiation beam and dose delivery could only be verified by measurement probe or device, which directly samples the field. Imaging via film or external portal imaging devices is most common, however, these only sample the field and not the dose delivered to the subject. The use of light emission from therapeutic-range radiation also provides a signal which can be used to visualize the beam in 2D and 3D in real-time. When planned carefully, it can also serve as a surrogate for the deposited dose. By applying the appropriate time gating and sensitivity, this can provide the clinical physics or radiotherapy teams with potentially video-rate feedback of the patients' treatment. The clinical utility is still developing as optimal camera choices are refined and optical imaging geometries are tested in clinical trials. The choice of the type of radioluminescence signal to image will alter how the imaging is done and what the application would be. In this chapter, the use of imaging to capture Cherenkov emission or scintillation emission is discussed from fundamental emission characteristics to how the signal can be used in both quality audit and delivery verification applications.
