Tissue compensators made of solid water or lead for megavoltage X-ray radiotherapy

Procedure for accurate fabrication of tissue compensators with high-density material

An accurate method for producing compensating filters using high-density material (Cerrobend) is described. The procedure consists of two cutting steps in a Styrofoam block: (i) levelling a surface of the block to a reference level; (ii) depth-modulated milling of the levelled block in accordance with pre-calculated thickness profiles of the compensator. The calculated thickness (generated by a dose planning system) can be reproduced within acceptable accuracy. The described compensator thickness manufactured according to this procedure is reproduced to within 0.1 mm, corresponding to a 0.5% change in dose at a beam quality of 6 MV. The results of our quality control checks performed with the technique of stylus profiling measurements show an accuracy of 0.04 mm (1 sigma) in the milling process over an arbitrary profile along the milled-out Styrofoam block.