Room: Stars at Night Ballroom 4
It is clear, just by reviewing the tables in TG-51, its Addendum and the AAPM/IAEA TRS-483, that the number of detectors available to the medical physicist has grown significantly over the last decade.
Cylindrical ion chambers are required for conventional linac photon beam output calibration. A correction for uniformity or use of a short reference-class chamber is required for flattening-filter free machines. Add in parallel-plate chambers for electron and hadron beams and a host of other detectors for small-field, relative dosimetry and other specialized applications and it can feel like you need a storeroom full of detectors to do your job properly. Wouldn’t it be great to just use one detector for everything?
However, it is also clear from a review of the literature that dosimetric mistakes are often made when physicists take established equipment and use them in non-standard situations without recognizing the limitations of operation. At the same time, protocols and QA programs require redundancy in equipment, so that a single failure will not lead to a major calibration problem. How do you best maintain traceability and robustness in your calibration of clinical radiation sources?
This symposium will attempt to a find a path through these competing requirements and identify methods of ensuring that a clinical medical physicist has the right equipment for their particular applications. The session will close with a panel discussion that will address the question, how many detectors are really required for adequate reference and relative dosimetry?
Learning Objectives:
1. Understand the issues and challenges of reference and relative dosimetry.
2. Identify best practices for beam output calibration.
3. Recognize the challenges of dosimetry in new technologies.
Not Applicable / None Entered.
Not Applicable / None Entered.