Comparison of dose measurements in CT using a novel semiconductor detector and a small ion chamber

The advance of multislice computed tomography (CT) has become inadequate the currently dosimetric protocol used in CT. Instead of dosimetry based on the measurement of CTDI using a pencil ion chamber of 100 m of length, it was proposed the use of a small ion chamber (IC) and the calculating the dose equilibrium (Deq) at the location of the chamber. The objective of this work was to compare the performance of a short IC and a commercial photodiode to measure the accumulated dose at the center of the scan length L, DL(0), and to obtain the equilibrium dose Deq using the two detectors. The result for L=100 mm was compared with the result of a pencil chamber. The results indicate that the commercial photodiode is suitable to measure the accumulated dose at the center of the scan length L as compared with the ion chambers. This methodology allows measurements of the accumulated dose for any desired scan length, allowing measuring the equilibrium dose Deq if the phantom is long enough to allow it. (authors)