• Progress in Medical Physics
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.167-172
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• 2004

A Siemens HD-270 MLC$^{TM}$, a virtual-micro MLC, allows to the application of a smooth field edge method due to the finite leaf-width of MLC. This technique was implemented into a Pinnacle planning system in order to evaluate the dose distributions during the planning stage. The necessary dosimetric aspects, such as undulation and effective penumbra, were investigated with variations in the resolutions of a virtual-micro MLC and field edge angle. The positional accuracy of the couch movement was also assessed for clinical implementation. The overhead time for planning and treatment was confirmed as negligible.e.

• The Journal of Korean Society for Radiation Therapy
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.1-9
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• 2003

I. Purpose The multileaf collimator(MLC) has many advantages, but use of the MLC increased effective penumbra and isodose undulation in dose distribution compared with that of an alloy block. In this work, we introduced the HD-270 MLC, which can improve the above disadvantages of MLC, and reported its feasibility study. II. Method and Materials The HD-270 MLC is a technique which combines the use of the existing Siemens multileaf collimator(3D MLC) with patient translation perpendicular to the leaf plane. The technique produces a smoothed isodose distribution with the reduced isodose undulation and effective penumbra. To assess the efficacy of the HD-270 technique and determine the appropriate resolution, a polygonal shaped MLC field was made to produce field edge angles from 0 degree to 75 degree with a step of 15 degree. Each HD-270 group was generated according to the allowed resolution, i. e., 5, 3, and 2mm. The experiment was carried out on Primus, a Siemens linear accelerator configured with HD-270 MLC. The total 60 MU of 6 MV photon beam was delivered to X-Omat film(Kodak, USA) at a SAD of 100 cm and 1.5 cm depth in solid water phantom. Exposed films were scanned by Lumiscan75(LUMISYS) and analyzed using RIT113 software(Radiological Imaging Technology Inc., USA). To test the mechanical accuracy of table movement, the transverse, longitudinal, and vertical positions were controlled by a consol with ${\pm}5\;mm,\;{\pm}4\;mm,\;{\pm}3\;mm,\;and\;{\pm}2\;mm$ steps, and then measured using a dial gauge with an accuracy of 0.001 inch. During the experiments, the table loaded with about 50Kg human phantom to simulate the real treatment situation. III. Results The effective penumbra and isodose undulation became larger with increase the resolution and field edge angle. The accuracy of the table movement on each direction is good within the ${\pm}1\;mm$. IV. Conclusion Clinical use of the MLC can be increased by using of the HD-270 MLC which complements to the disadvantages of the MLC.