ELogs/JamesGolbourn

Electronic Log for James Golbourn

To Do

Short Term

• Write research essay.
• Update presentation with corrections made.
• Better understand beam uniformity (is it a function of depth?) - The SOBP longitudinal uniformity is defined as the maximum difference in the dose within the dose reference volume expressed as the percentage of the average dose within the reference volume. Normally part of weekly QA.
• Look at daily and monthly QA parameters.
• AAPM Task group no.224 set to publish daily machine QA procedures - but not published yet.

Long Term

• Email Alison for details of Hakan Nystrom.
• Get in contact with Laurent contact at Med Austrom about QA procedures.
• Prepare practice presentation for project (8/2/19)
• Write up report on meeting with UCLH.
• Look at what functioning centres are using as QA.
• Look at advantages and disadvantages of QA systems.

Tasks Completed

• Presentation to PBT group.
• Project progress report.
• Project outline.
• First plan for research essay.
• Prepare practise presentation to Agapi.

Key Dates

Task	Deadline
Project Outline	03/12/2018
Project Progress Report	31/01/2019
Short Presentation	08/02/2019
Research Essay	31/03/2019
Thesis Deadline	22/08/2019
Final Presentation	02/09/2019

Research Essay First Plan

• Introduction:

1. What is PBT and the theory?
   1. Different methods of beam production
   2. Pencil beam scanning and uniform scattering.
2. What is Quality Assurance?
   1. Why is it needed?
   2. Relation to X-Ray QA and lack of consistency between facilities.
3. Beam parameters - what needs to be measured

• Sections on different beam properties and characteristics:
  • For each of these sections there should be a description of:
    • What is it?
    • Relation to patient dosimetry and why is it important?
    • Methods of measurement.

1. Beam energy and range
2. Beam output
3. Spot size and symmetry
4. Spot position and beam uniformity

• Commercial devices available for QA

1. IBA Lynx
2. IBA Matrixx
3. IBA Zebra
4. Sun Nuclear QA 3

• Various methods using these devices for QA

• Conclusion

Progress Report Outline

• Introduction to Proton beam therapy.
• What is Quality Assurance?
• Important beam characteristics.
• Commercially available devices such as the Matrixx, Lynx and Sun Nuclear QA3.
• Other methods for measuring beam properties.

Comments made about presentation

• Understand what range modulators do.
• Look into whether Zebra was initially designed for X-Rays.
• Zebra not often used for daily QA due to the very long initial set up time.
• Investigate film dosimetry e.g Gafchromic film.
• Research Lynx scintillator.
• Range calorimeter - need a moving absorber, e.g water tank, to measure energy and range.
• Know difference between scintillator screens and fibres - fibres use fibre optics and are not used due to needing something to read output from each fibre which is expensive.
• UCLH will have 4 treatment rooms.
• Put slide number on presentation.
• Expand on each daily QA:
  • Table of devices
  • Tolerances
  • How long it takes
• Collect standards and tolerances on energy, spot size and output.

Useful Links for Research Essay

• Sun Nuclear QA 3 Device:
  • A novel daily QA system for proton therapy
    • https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5714372/
  • Daily QA in proton therapy using a single commercially available detector
    • https://aapm.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1120/jacmp.v15i6.5005
  • Sun Nuclear QA 3 Fact Sheet
    • https://www.sunnuclear.com/documents/datasheets/dailyqa3-rfdaily.pdf
  • Technical Note: An efficient daily QA procedure for proton pencil beam scanning
    • https://aapm.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/mp.12787

• IBA Zebra:
  • Quality assurance of proton beams using a multilayer ionization chamber system
    • https://aapm.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1118/1.4817481