Improvement of dose range of thermoluminescence dosimeters applied in radiotherapy

Abstract

To deliver the desired absorbed dose to the tumor and save the neighboring healthy tissue the sources of errors in the assessment of the therapeutic dose should be minimized. In the current work, 64 of LiF dosimeters (TLD-700 and TLD-600) were used. The sensitivity factor of each dosimeter with its percentage deviations σ% was calculated and the samples which have σ (>2) more than the desired uncertainty were excluded. Three protocols for the treatments of the TLD data were applied. Firstly, by subtraction the zero dose reading; secondly, by eliminating the high-temperature range of the glow curve, and thirdly, by taking the maximum height of the fifth dosimetric peak (P5). Improvement in the linearity dose response range used in therapeutic doses was achieved using the second method. The suggested proposal succeeded in reducing the linear measurements region in radiotherapy to 1.1 mGy.

KEYWORDS:

• Thermoluminescence dosimetry
• LiF dosimeters
• dose range
• sensitivity factor
• zero-dose

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).