To optimize delivery of radiation therapy treatments, accurate knowledge of absorbed dose in the clinical beam is essential. In this work we investigated issues related to the use of different types of ionization chambers for accurate radiation dosimetry. We determined values of Pwall at 60Co for plane-parallel chambers and used them to derive the conversion factors kecal k'R 50 or kQ for a 20 MeV electron beam. Our results agreed within 0.4% with kQ values given in the IAEA TRS-398 protocol, but differences of up to 1.8% were found between our kecalk' R50 values and those in the AAPM TG-51 protocol. We also investigated the behavior of two liquid-filled ionization chambers in megavoltage photon beams, examining stability, ion recombination and beam quality dependence. Methods for determining and correcting for recombination were investigated. Preliminary results show that the energy dependence of a liquid-filled chamber can typically be limited to less than 1% for megavoltage photon beams.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.29576 |
| Date | January 2001 |
| Creators | Stewart, Kristin J. |
| Contributors | Seuntjens, Jan (advisor) |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Master of Science (Department of Medical Radiation Physics.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 001975084, proquestno: MQ88706, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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