Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene (ABS) plastic based low cost tissue equivalent phantom for verification dosimetry in IMRT.

A novel IMRT phantom was designed and fabricated using Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene (ABS) plastic. Physical properties of ABS plastic related to radiation interaction and dosimetry were compared with commonly available phantom materials for dose measurements in radiotherapy. The ABS IMRT phantom has provisions to hold various types of detectors such as ion chambers, radiographic/radiochromic films, TLDs, MOSFETs, and gel dosimeters. The measurements related to pre-treatment dose verification in IMRT of carcinoma prostate were carried out using ABS and Scanditronics-Wellhoffer RW3 IMRT phantoms for five different cases. Point dose data were acquired using ionization chamber and TLD discs while Gafchromic EBT and radiographic EDR2 films were used for generating 2-D dose distributions. Treatment planning system (TPS) calculated and measured doses in ABS plastic and RW3 IMRT phantom were in agreement within +/-2%. The dose values at a point in a given patient acquired using ABS and RW3 phantoms were found comparable within 1%. Fluence maps and dose distributions of these patients generated by TPS and measured in ABS IMRT phantom were also found comparable both numerically and spatially. This study indicates that ABS plastic IMRT phantom is a tissue equivalent phantom and dosimetrically it is similar to solid/plastic water IMRT phantoms. Though this material is demonstrated for IMRT dose verification but it can be used as a tissue equivalent phantom material for other dosimetry purposes in radiotherapy.