During external beam radiotherapy “EBT” treatment, high doses are delivered to the cancerous tumors. There have been situations where errors in dose calculations led to relapse of some cancers. Problems of overexposure have also been reported in some countries. Therefore, accuracy and precision in dose calculation are crucial for effective and efficiency to success in radiotherapy. The study focused on investigating accurate doses received by 57 selected breast cancer patients (56 female and 1 male) aged between 32–77 years undergoing post-mastectomy radiotherapy treatment “PMRT” using the new technology of external beam radiotherapy-3 (EBT-3) films as detectors. Protocol to compare the prescribed doses to the measured doses was achieved. After measuring scattered radiations on patients, the EBT-3 films were analyzed for reading using EPSON Expression 10000XL flatbed scanner and Image J 1.8a software. Results of breast cancer patient’s doses were obtained. The percentage error between measured and prescribed doses ranged from 0.14%–9.67%, 0.3%–10.99%, and 0.28%–11.99% for the supraclavicular, medial, and lateral irradiations of the breast, respectively. Results obtained show that, the overall tolerance errors required of ±7% for breast cancer cases as complex practice, was achieved in about 73.68% of all cases studied, 89.65% and 96.42% for all the left and right supraclavicular cases respectively. It can be concluded that the level of accuracy in the computation of patient doses at the DGH is good. EBT3 films are useful tools for quality assurance (QA) in EBT practices. However, there is a need for constant verification of dose delivered to other cancer patients using other detectors like Diodes, NanoDot OSL, and TLD for intercomparison.
Fokou Mvoufo (Sun,) studied this question.
Synapse has enriched 5 closely related papers on similar clinical questions. Consider them for comparative context: