Introduction: The radiation isocenter is the intersection of the rotation axes of the gantry, the collimator and the couch, which, due to several factors, do not meet in the same point but within the sphere. The size of the radiation isocenter is influenced by mechanical tolerance of bearings, flexion of the gantry structure, and incomplete alignment of the center of the multi-leaf collimator carriage with the rotary axis of the collimator or of the rotary axis of the couch and the collimator. Purpose: We wanted to determine whether both used software, PIPSpro and Pylinac, equally calculated the size of the radiation isocenter on the basis of star shot images. Methods: We made star shots for the collimator, the gantry and couch on 9 linear accelerators. For each image, we used 3 collimated slit-shaped fields. The difference between the angles of the gantry and the collimator was 120 ° and of the couch it was 60 °. To analyze the images that we made and to calculate the radii of the incircles we used the PIPSpro and Pylinac software. Results: Both software programs calculated similarly, as the mean values and standard deviations were similar for all linear accelerators. The difference with the gantry and the collimator was smaller than 0.02 mm, while at the couch it was slightly bigger; in average it was 0.11 mm and at standard deviation it came to 0.06 mm. After further processing, when we analyzed the same image multiple times from different starting points, the results of PIPSpro software showed similar deviation as we had between the software. With Pylinac, we processed the images in two ways; first, we changed the starting points by 1 pixel and then we separated them by 10 pixels. In both cases, similar results were obtained since the positions of the circular profile centers did not differ much. Despite small differences in the position of the circular profile circle center, the difference in the size of incircles was significant. Deviations of the magnitude of the incircles more significant with PIPSpro than with Pylinac, which was probably due to the bigger differences in the position of circular profiles circle centers. Discussion and conclusion: The results show that both software programs are comparable and that in spite of differences between them, they still calculate in the same way. The value of the incircle was influenced by the starting point of the analysis, which was random in all the images, which was also reflected in the fact that the differences of the incircle radii were normally distributed between both software programs.
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