Variation in Elekta iView electronic portal imager pixel scale factor with gantry angle, and impact on multi-leaf collimator quality assurance.

ABSTRACT

For Elekta Agility linear accelerators, the iViewGT electronic portal imaging device (EPID) is positioned at a nominal X-Ray source-to-panel distance of 1600 mm. For display, image registration, and data processing purposes, the image pixels are scaled to spatial units at the treatment isocenter plane. This is achieved by applying a pixel scaling factor (PSF). During this investigation, the dependence of the PSF at cardinal gantry angles was determined along with the resulting effects on the multi-leaf collimator (MLC) quality assurance (QA) results for three linear accelerators (linacs). The PSF was found to vary by 0.0018-0.0022 mm/pixel during gantry rotation, which resulted in variations in the mean MLC reported error of up to 0.8 mm at 100 mm off-axis with the gantry rotated to 180°. Measurement and application of a gantry angle-specific PSF is a simple process that can be implemented to improve the accuracy of EPID-based MLC QA at cardinal gantry angles.