Evaluation of the basic properties of the BANGkit™ gel dosimeter

Murakami Yuji

Nakashima T.

Watanabe Yoichi

Akimitsu Tomohide

Matsuura Kanji

Kenjo Masahiro

Kaneyasu Yuko

Wadasaki Koichi

Hirokawa Yutaka

Ito Katsuhide

Physics in Medicine and Biology

We evaluated the basic properties of a commercially available BANGkit™ gel dosimeter, which is a normoxic type of BANG® gel. This gel-kit has the same composition as the BANG®3 gel, but is fully oxygenated. To exclude oxygen, oxygen scavenging ascorbic acid and copper sulfate as a catalyst are used. The properties that we examined are the effects of the concentrations of copper sulfate and ascorbic acid on the response, the reproducibility, the long-term stability, the temperature effect at irradiation, and the dose-rate effect. In our results, the excellent linear fit of the R2-dose response in a dose range for clinical use and its reproducibility were observed. The precision of a linear fit was preserved for about three weeks. The temperature at irradiation showed a significant effect on the dose response. Although the dose-rate dependence in the high dose range was observed, it was negligible for the clinical dose range up to 270 cGy. In conclusion, this gel dosimeter is thought to be utilizable in clinical practice, while we have to pay attention to the temperature during the entire measurement processes, and additionally there is room for improvement in the linearity and the dose-rate dependence in the high dose range.

polymer gel

gel dosimetry

BANGkit

Medical sciences [ 490 ]

eng

IOP Publishing

Copyright (c) Institute of Physics and IOP Publishing Limited 2007.

[ISSN] 0031-9155

[DOI] 10.1088/0031-9155/52/8/017

[PMID] 17404470

[NCID] AA00774048

[DOI] http://dx.doi.org/10.1088/0031-9155/52/8/017