ESTRO 2023

Session Item

Sunday

May 14

16:45 - 17:45

Strauss 3

Head and neck & physics

Chair: , Poland;

Co-Chair: , Germany

Session Code: 2560

Session Type: Proffered Papers

Track: Brachytherapy

17:35 - 17:45

GEC-ESTRO Recommendations on Calibration and Traceability of HE HDR-PDR Photon Brachytherapy Sources

, Spain

Presentation Number: OC-0636

Abstract

Abstract Title:

GEC-ESTRO Recommendations on Calibration and Traceability of HE HDR-PDR Photon Brachytherapy Sources

Authors:

Jose Perez Calatayud^1,2, Facundo Ballester³, Åsa Carlsson Tedgren⁴, Larry A. DeWerd⁵, Panagiotis Papagiannis⁶, Mark J. Rivard⁷, Frank-André Siebert⁸, Javier Vijande³

¹Hospital La Fe, Radiation Oncology, Valencia, Spain; ²Hospital Clinica Benidorm, Radiation Oncology, Alicante, Spain; ³Valencia University, Departament of Atomic, Molecular and Nuclear Physics, Valencia, Spain; ⁴, Linköping University Sweden, Radiation Physics, Department of Medicine and Health (IMH), , Linköping, Sweden; ⁵University of Wisconsin–Madison, Department of Medical Physics, School of Medicine and Public Health, Madison, USA; ⁶National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Medical Physics Laboratory, Medical School, Athens Greece, Greece; ⁷Alpert Medical School of Brown University, Department of Radiation Oncology, Providence, USA; ⁸UKSH, Campus Kiel, Klinik für Strahlentherapie (Radioonkologie), Kiel, Germany

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Purpose or Objective

The vast majority of radiotherapy departments in Europe using brachytherapy (BT) perform temporary implants of high- or pulsed-dose rate (HDR-PDR) sources with photon energies higher than 50 keV. Such techniques are successfully applied to diverse pathologies and clinical scenarios. In this communication, we present the GEC-ESTRO recommendations on Calibration and Traceability of high energy HDR-PDR Photon-Emitting Brachytherapy Sources at the Hospital Level.

Material and Methods

These recommendations are the result of Working Package 21 (WP-21) initiated within the BRAchytherapy PHYsics Quality Assurance System (BRAPHYQS) GEC-ESTRO working group with a focus on HDR-PDR source calibration. They provide guidance on the calibration of such sources, including practical aspects and issues not specifically accounted for in well-accepted societal recommendations, complementing the BRAPHYQS WP-18 report dedicated to low energy BT photon emitting sources (seeds).

Results

Recommendations are offered on the preferred equipment for source assay (well-type chamber), the establishment of a redundancy program, the periodicity of assay, source model specific calibrations and source design constancy, contamination testing, source certification and of course assay tolerance. Key points are that the responsibility to assay sources remains with the medical physicist and administrators must provide the required resources, and that a tighter tolerance level of 3% difference between source assay and source certificate provided by the vendor is established for HE BT sources.

Conclusion

This report provides a European-wide standard in HDR-PDR BT source calibration at the hospital level to maintain high quality patient treatments.