An innovative method for 192Ir HDR calibration by farmer chamber, V-film, and solid phantom

A simple, practical and economical technique was proposed to calibrate an 192Ir HDR brachytherapy source in terms of air kerma strength. This technique makes use of the 0.6 cm3 Farmer type ion chamber, radiographic film and polystyrene phantom. These tools are commonly used for dosimetry quality assurance of the clinical linear accelerator. In this study, the Exradin A19, PTW N30004 and TM30001 Farmer type ion chambers were used for the calibration of the 192Ir HDR source. To perform the calibration, a 25.4x30.5 cm2 radiographic film was taped on a piece of polystyrene plate, and a straight applicator probe of a HDR brachytherapy unit and the Farmer type ion chamber were affixed to the film envelope. The film was irradiated by the 192Ir source, followed by an exposure in the simulator X-ray beam. The film set with the film removed was then placed on a 5 cm thick polystyrene phantom for calibration measurement. Based on the electrometer reading from the Farmer type ion chamber irradiated by 192Ir and the measured source-to-chamber distance by means of the images on the developed film, we can calculate the air kerma strength of the 192Ir using the new technique. Our calibration results were compared to the data provided by the manufacturer and that of five different well type ion chambers, namely, Sun Nuclear cooperation (SNC) 1008, Nucletron SDS 077.091, SDS 077.094, PTW TN33004 and Standard Imaging (SI) HDR-1000 Plus. The differences were all within 1.6%. Relative to the '7-distance measurement technique' by Stump et al., 2002, our method is more efficient if our empirical formula was used. In summary, our method is simpler and cost-effective to calibrate an 192Ir HDR brachytherapy source for those hospitals without a calibration jig or a well type ion chamber.