Open beam dosimetric characteristics of True Beam medical linear accelerator with flattening filter (WFF) and flattening filter free (FFF) beam

Abstract

Abstract True Beam medical linear accelerator is capable of delivering flattening filter free (FFF) and with flattening filter (WFF) photon beams. True Beam linear accelerator is equipped with five photon beam energies (6 FFF, 6 WFF, 10 FFF, 10 WFF and 15 WFF) as well as six electron beam energies (6 MeV, 9 MeV, 12 MeV, 15 MeV and 18 MeV). The maximum dose rate for the 6 WFF, 10 WFF and 15 WFF is 600 MU/min, whereas 6 FFF has a maximum dose rate of 1400 MU/min and 10 FFF with a maximum dose rate of 2400 MU/min. In this report we discussed the open beam dosimetric characteristics of True Beam medical linear accelerator with FFF and WFF beam. All the dosimetric data (i.e. depth dose, cross-line profiles, diagonal profiles, output factors, MLC transmission, etc.) for 6 MV, 6 FFF, 10 MV, 10 FFF and 15 MV were measured and compared with the published data of the True Beam. Multiple detectors were used in order to obtain a consistent dataset. The measured data has a good consistency with the reference golden beam data. The measured beam quality index for all the beams are in good agreement with the published data. The percentage depth dose at 10 cm depth of all the available photon beams was within the tolerance of the Varian acceptance specification. The dosimetric data shows consistent and comparable results with the published data of other True Beam linear accelerators. The dosimetric data provide us an appreciated perception and consistent among the published data and may be used for future references.