Bento, Mariana;
Cook, Hannah;
Anaya, Virginia Marin;
Bär, Esther;
Nisbet, Andrew;
Lourenço, Ana;
Hussein, Mohammad;
(2024)
Characterisation of 3D-printable thermoplastics to be used as tissue-equivalent materials in photon and proton beam radiotherapy end-to-end quality assurance devices.
Biomedical Physics & Engineering Express
, 10
(6)
, Article 065005. 10.1088/2057-1976/ad6f95.
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Abstract
Objective. To investigate the potential of 3D-printable thermoplastics as tissue-equivalent materials to be used in multimodal radiotherapy end-to-end quality assurance (QA) devices. Approach. Six thermoplastics were investigated: Polylactic Acid (PLA), Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene (ABS), Polyethylene Terephthalate Glycol (PETG), Polymethyl Methacrylate (PMMA), High Impact Polystyrene (HIPS) and StoneFil. Measurements of mass density ( ρ ), Relative Electron Density (RED), in a nominal 6 MV photon beam, and Relative Stopping Power (RSP), in a 210 MeV proton pencil-beam, were performed. Average Hounsfield Units (HU) were derived from CTs acquired with two independent scanners. The calibration curves of both scanners were used to predict average ρ , RED and RSP values and compared against the experimental data. Finally, measured data of ρ , RED and RSP was compared against theoretical values estimated for the thermoplastic materials and biological tissues. Main results. Overall, good ρ and RSP CT predictions were made; only PMMA and PETG showed differences >5%. The differences between experimental and CT predicted RED values were also <5% for PLA, ABS, PETG and PMMA; for HIPS and StoneFil higher differences were found (6.94% and 9.42/15.34%, respectively). Small HU variations were obtained in the CTs for all materials indicating good uniform density distribution in the samples production. ABS, PLA, PETG and PMMA showed potential equivalency for a variety of soft tissues (adipose tissue, skeletal muscle, brain and lung tissues, differences within 0.19%-8.35% for all properties). StoneFil was the closest substitute to bone, but differences were >10%. Theoretical calculations of all properties agreed with experimental values within 5% difference for most thermoplastics. Significance. Several 3D-printed thermoplastics were promising tissue-equivalent materials to be used in devices for end-to-end multimodal radiotherapy QA and may not require corrections in treatment planning systems’ dose calculations. Theoretical calculations showed promise in identifying thermoplastics matching target biological tissues before experiments are performed.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Characterisation of 3D-printable thermoplastics to be used as tissue-equivalent materials in photon and proton beam radiotherapy end-to-end quality assurance devices |
| Location: | England |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1088/2057-1976/ad6f95 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1088/2057-1976/ad6f95 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Original content from this work may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. Any further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the title of the work, journal citation and DOI. |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Engineering Science > Dept of Med Phys and Biomedical Eng |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10208835 |
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