Design, Construction and Performance Evaluation of the Target Tissue Thickness Measurement System in Intraoperative Radiotherapy for Breast Cancer Publisher



Yazdani MR¹ ; Setayeshi S¹ ; Arabalibeik H² ; Akbari ME³
Source: Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research# Section A: Accelerators# Spectrometers# Detectors and Associated Equipment Published:2017

Abstract

Intraoperative electron radiation therapy (IOERT), which uses electron beams for irradiating the target directly during the surgery, has the advantage of delivering a homogeneous dose to a controlled layer of tissue. Since the dose falls off quickly below the target thickness, the underlying normal tissues are spared. In selecting the appropriate electron energy, the accuracy of the target tissue thickness measurement is critical. In contrast to other procedures applied in IOERT, the routine measurement method is considered to be completely traditional and approximate. In this work, a novel mechanism is proposed for measuring the target tissue thickness with an acceptable level of accuracy. An electronic system has been designed and manufactured with the capability of measuring the tissue thickness based on the recorded electron density under the target. The results indicated the possibility of thickness measurement with a maximum error of 2 mm for 91.35% of data. Aside from system limitation in estimating the thickness of 5 mm phantom, for 88.94% of data, maximum error is 1 mm. © 2017 Elsevier B.V.