Do saccharide doped PAGAT dosimeters increase accuracy?. Issue 1 (12th January 2015)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Berndt, B; Skyt, P S; Holloway, L; Hill, R; Sankar, A; De Deene, Y
• Is Part Of: Journal of physics. Number 573:Issue 1(2014)
• Page Start: 012029
• Publication Date: 2015-01-12
• Subjects: Physics -- Congresses; 530.5
• DOI: 10.1088/1742-6596/573/1/012029
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1742-6588

Abstract

Abstract: To improve the dosimetric accuracy of normoxic polyacrylamide gelatin (PAGAT) gel dosimeters, the addition of saccharides (glucose and sucrose) has been suggested. An increase in R2 -response sensitivity upon irradiation will result in smaller uncertainties in the derived dose if all other uncertainties are conserved. However, temperature variations during the magnetic resonance scanning of polymer gels result in one of the highest contributions to dosimetric uncertainties. The purpose of this project was to study the dose sensitivity against the temperature sensitivity. The overall dose uncertainty of PAGAT gel dosimeters with different concentrations of saccharides (0, 10 and 20%) was investigated. For high concentrations of glucose or sucrose, a clear improvement of the dose sensitivity was observed. For doses up to 6 Gy, the overall dose uncertainty was reduced up to 0.3 Gy for all saccharide loaded gels compared to PAGAT gel. Higher concentrations of glucose and sucrose deteriorate the accuracy of PAGAT dosimeters for doses above 9 Gy.