Development and clinical application of three-dimensional gel dosimeter for radiotherapy treatment

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 and an application of 3D gel dosimeters are reviewed. (author)