Performance of a Full-Scale Upstream MAPS-Based Verification Device for Radiotherapy

Sensors (Basel). 2023 Feb 6;23(4):1799. doi: 10.3390/s23041799.

Abstract

Intensity-modulated radiotherapy is a widely used technique for accurately targeting cancerous tumours in difficult locations using dynamically shaped beams. This is ideally accompanied by real-time independent verification. Monolithic active pixel sensors are a viable candidate for providing upstream beam monitoring during treatment. We have already demonstrated that a Monolithic Active Pixel Sensor (MAPS)-based system can fulfill all clinical requirements except for the minimum required size. Here, we report the performance of a large-scale demonstrator system consisting of a matrix of 2 × 2 sensors, which is large enough to cover almost all radiotherapy treatment fields when affixed to the shadow tray of the LINAC head. When building a matrix structure, a small dead area is inevitable. Here, we report that with a newly developed position algorithm, leaf positions can be reconstructed over the entire range with a position resolution of below ∼200 μm in the centre of the sensor, which worsens to just below 300 μm in the middle of the gap between two sensors. A leaf position resolution below 300 μm results in a dose error below 2%, which is good enough for clinical deployment.

Keywords: Monolithic Active Pixel Sensors (MAPS); Multi Leaf Collimator (MLC); X-ray detectors; data processing methods; detector alignment and calibration; image processing; image reconstruction in medical imaging; radiation-hard detectors; radiotherapy concepts; radiotherapy monitoring; radiotherapy verification; solid-state detectors.

MeSH terms

  • Algorithms*
  • Plant Leaves*

Grants and funding

This research was funded by STFC and EPSRC through the IAA route. Jordan Pritchard received a scholarship from the EPSRC DTA. Yutong Li is funded by the Chinese Scholarship Council.