Surface dose extrapolation measurements with radiographic film.

Assessment of surface dose delivered from radiotherapy x-ray beams for optimal results should be performed both inside and outside the prescribed treatment fields. An extrapolation technique can be used with radiographic film to perform surface dose assessment for open field high energy x-ray beams. This can produce an accurate two-dimensional map of surface dose if required. Results have shown that the surface percentage dose can be estimated within +/-3% of parallel plate ionization chamber results with radiographic film using a series of film layers to produce an extrapolated result. Extrapolated percentage dose assessment for 10 cm, 20 cm and 30 cm square fields was estimated to be 15% +/- 2%, 29% +/- 3% and 38% +/- 3% at the central axis and relatively uniform across the treatment field. The corresponding parallel plate ionization chamber measurements are 16%, 27% and 37%, respectively. Surface doses are also measured outside the treatment field which are mainly due to scattered electron contamination. To achieve this result, film calibration curves must be irradiated to similar x-ray field sizes as the experimental film to minimize quantitative variations in film optical density caused by varying x-ray spectrum with field size.