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Modern radiotherapy treatment machines offer a lot of
advanced capabilities but as a consequence also a lot of potential errors
in their intricate internal systems.
Weekly QA checks are really not acceptable since an error
that goes undetected for several days can cause irreparable injury to a
large number of patients.
A very simple but effective method for primary quality
assurance of treatment machines is a quick check of output and dose
monitor calibration every morning.
A practical tool for this is to install an ionization
chamber in a solid phantom block in the treatment room and connect it to
an electrometer in the control room.
Such a setup is very easy to operate and allows the
radiographers to do the morning check measurements on their own directly
after the warm-up time of the machine. The physicist can then just define
the tolerance level for acceptable readings and specify the method of
documentation to be relieved from the early morning work.
The Elektra electrometer is designed specifically for this
purpose since it has eliminated all complicated settings that can cause
errors in readout and it is also inexpensive enough to be permanently
placed in every treatment control room.
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