Introduction of Three-dimensional gel dosimetry : Focusing on polymer gel dosimetry

Abstract

  With rapid advances being made in radiotherapy treatment, three dimensional (3D) dose measurement techniques of great precision are required more than ever before. It is expected that 3D gel dosimeters will satisfy clinical needs for an effective detector that can measure the complex 3D dose distributions. They are devices that utilize the radiation-induced chemical reactions of radiosensitive (radiochromic) molecules or ions in a gel to store information about radiation dose. The 3D absorbed dose distribution can be deduced from the resulting product distribution using several imaging modalities, such as MRI, X-ray and optical CTs. In this article, the fundamental characteristics of 3D gel dosimeters focusing on polymer gel dosimeter are reviewed with other 3D gel dosimeters.