Malaysian participation in the IAEA/WHO postal TLD and postal ionisation chamber intercomparison programmes: analysis of results obtained during 1985-2008

Dosimetry audit for megavoltage photon beams applied in non-reference conditions

PURPOSE

We have conducted for the first time a Malaysian postal dosimetry audit of external beam under non-reference conditions by evaluating the output performance while screening for systematic errors within the dosimetry chain. The potential use from the choice of detector were investigated along with the search for other sources of discrepancies.

METHODS

Ten radiotherapy centres were audited, encompassing 16 megavoltage photon beam arrangements, adopting the IAEA postal dosimetry protocol for non-reference conditions, with a holder modified to accommodate three TLD types: Ge-doped cylindrical silica fibres (CF), Ge-doped flat silica fibres (FF), and TLD-100 powder.

RESULTS

Eight of the centres operated within ± 5% of stated dose, one other exceeding tolerance for all measured points, and one did not return any dosimeters for analysis after failing the initial irradiations. Post remedial measures, the mean relative response for CF, FF, and TLD-100 was 1.00, 0.99, and 0.98 respectively, with associated coefficients of variation 6.87%, 6.45%, and 5.06%.

CONCLUSION

High quality radiotherapy clinical practice postal dosimetry audits that are based on sensitive TLDs are seen to be particularly effective in identifying and resolving dose delivery discrepancies.

Dosimetric feature of natural biotite mineral

A thermoluminescence (TL) study relevant to radiation dosimetry has been carried out for X-ray irradiated biotite mineral under un-annealed and different annealed (473, 573, 673 and 773 K) conditions. Some significant variations in dosimetric characteristics have been observed with annealing treatment. Due to generation of an additional shallow trap level at depth 0.78 eV in 673 and 773 K annealed samples, the dose response is found to improve. For the 773 K annealed sample, a linear dose response has been observed from 10 to 1100 mGy. The fading is ∼13% within 5 d after irradiation and onward it reduces to 7% up to 60 d. Reproducibility of this (773 K) sample is excellent. After 10 recycles the coefficient of variations in the results for the 60, 180 and 1000 mGy dose-irradiated samples are found to be 0.97, 1.31 and 1.03%, respectively. The potential use of biotite as a natural X-ray dosemeter is discussed.