Gantry-angle resolved VMAT pretreatment verification using EPID image prediction.
PURPOSE
Pretreatment verification of volumetric modulated arc therapy (VMAT) dose delivery with electronic portal imaging device (EPID) uses images integrated over the entire delivery or over large subarcs. This work aims to develop a new method for gantry-angle-resolved verification of VMAT dose delivery using EPID.


METHODS
An EPID dose prediction model was used to calculate EPID images as a function of gantry angle for eight prostate patient deliveries. EPID image frames at 7.5 frames per second were acquired during delivery via a frame-grabber system. The gantry angle for each image was encoded in kV frames which were synchronized to the MV frames. Gamma analysis results as a function of gantry angle were assessed by integrating the frames over 2° subarcs with an angle-to-agreement tolerance of 0.5° about the measured image angle.


RESULTS
The model agreed with EPID images integrated over the entire delivery with average Gamma pass-rates at 2%, 2 mm of 99.7% (10% threshold). The accuracy of the kV derived gantry angle for each image was found to be 0.1° (1 SD) using a phantom test. For the gantry-resolved analysis all Gamma pass-rates were greater than 90% at 3%, 3 mm criteria (with only two exceptions), and more than 90% had a 95% pass-rate, with an average of 97.3%. The measured gantry angle lagged behind the predicted angle by a mean of 0.3°±0.3°, with a maximum lag of 1.3°.


CONCLUSIONS
The method provides a comprehensive and highly efficient pretreatment verification of VMAT delivery using EPID. Dose delivery accuracy is assessed as a function of gantry angle to ensure accurate treatment.