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Various forms of Gafchromic films that are increasingly used for dosimetry in radiotherapy offer the prospect of reproducible and accurate high-resolution two-dimensional dose measurements, but there are many unresolved issues regarding the optimal choice of densitometric procedure used for the films optical density (OD) readout. There are conflicting requirements for scanners (sensitivity, availability, price) and commercial document scanners appears to be a reasonable option, hence we analyzed the measured sublinear dose response of these scanners. Using measured film absorption spectra we were able to make quantitative distinction between various factors affecting the sublinearity and to demonstrate that the dose response curve can be predicted for any selected light source used for scanning. We also used the commercial narrow bandpass filters in conjunction with document scanners to investigate whether such an inexpensive option can improve their sensitivity, but results were not encouraging. Finally, we analyzed the suitability of proposed fitting equations for the calibration of the dose response and found that their reliability largely depends on the dose range used for the calibration. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Various forms of Gafchromic films that are increasingly used for dosimetry in radiotherapy offer the prospect of reproducible and accurate high-resolution two-dimensional dose measurements, but there are many unresolved issues regarding the optimal choice of densitometric procedure used for the films optical density (OD) readout. There are conflicting requirements for scanners (sensitivity, availability, price) and commercial document scanners appears to be a reasonable option, hence we analyzed the measured sublinear dose response of these scanners. Using measured film absorption spectra we were able to make quantitative distinction between various factors affecting the sublinearity and to demonstrate that the dose response curve can be predicted for any selected light source used for scanning. We also used the commercial narrow bandpass filters in conjunction with document scanners to investigate whether such an inexpensive option can improve their sensitivity, but results were not encouraging. Finally, we analyzed the suitability of proposed fitting equations for the calibration of the dose response and found that their reliability largely depends on the dose range used for the calibration. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

The goal of this study is to compare the sensitometric curves for HS model of GafChromic film using different dose read-out systems. Two commercial densitometers using fluorescent light source were tested and compared with results obtained using spectrophotometry. It was found that sublinear response of densitometers is due to the polychromaticity of emitted light and that response curve can be predicted by analysing absorption spectra of the film.