Evaluation of gafchromic EBT film for intensity modulated radiation therapy dose distribution verification

This work was undertaken with the intention of investigating the possibility of clinical use of commercially available self-developing radiochromic film - Gafchromic EBT film - for IMRT dose verification. The dose response curves were generated for the films using VXR-16 film scanner. The results obtained with EBT films were compared with the results of Kodak EDR2 films. It was found that the EBT film has a linear response between the dose ranges of 0 and 600 cGy. The dose-related characteristics of the EBT film, like post-irradiation color growth with time, film uniformity and effect of scanning orientation, were studied. There is up to 8.6% increase in the color density between 2 and 40 h after irradiation. There was a considerable variation, up to 8.5%, in the film uniformity over its sensitive region. The quantitative difference between calculated and measured dose distributions was analyzed using Gamma index with the tolerance of 3% dose difference and 3 mm distance agreement. EDR2 films showed good and consistent results with the calculated dose distribution, whereas the results obtained using EBT were inconsistent. The variation in the film uniformity limits the use of EBT film for conventional large field IMRT verification. For IMRT of smaller field size (4.5 x 4.5 cm), the results obtained with EBT were comparable with results of EDR2 films. (author)