ABSTRACT
Ionisation Chambers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279
Pedro Andreo, Alan Nahum, and David Thwaites
Chapter 16
Radiothermoluminescent Dosimeters and Diodes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 303
Ginette Marinello
Chapter 17
Radiation Sensitive Films and Gels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 321
Mark Oldham
Chapter 18
Absolute Dose Determination under Reference Conditions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 333
Pedro Andreo and Alan Nahum (with David Thwaites)
Chapter 19
Relative Dose Measurements and Commissioning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 367
Ivan Rosenberg
Appendix D
Supplementary Details on Codes of Practice for Absolute Dose Determination . . . 385
Pedro Andreo and Alan Nahum
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 415
Dose measurement is essential in radiation therapy. The dose delivered to the patient is
required to be known with an accuracy, at worst, of the order of 5% to 7%, taken to be the
95% confidence level (ICRU 1976; Dutreix 1984; Mijnheer et al. 1987) as discussed further in
Section 37.4. The dose finally delivered to the patient is the end result of a complex sequence,
involving several steps and many processes and parameters, and each contributing component
must have an appropriately higher accuracy to achieve this overall value. In particular, the
beams generated from the treatment machines should be calibrated with an accuracy
approaching 1%. In this Part, Chapter 15 to Chapter 17 describe the dosimeters that are
commonly used in radiation therapy departments and in Chapter 18 and Chapter 19 the
methodology of beam calibration and the acquisition of the experimental data needed for
patient dose calculations is discussed. A minimum knowledge of clinical beam properties is
useful for a better understanding of the methodology for dose measurement, for which it will
occasionally be useful to refer to Part E (Clinical Beams).
