Development of a laser scanner for polymer gel dosimetry

Advances the medical application of ionizing radiation, and specifically in cancer treatment, are continuously evolving and gaining higher degrees of complexity. Therefore, the ability to determine and ensure the safety and precision of these techniques must be accompanied by novel dosimetry systems. Polymer gel dosimetry is one of the new and remarkable dosimetry systems that can quantitatively record the absorbed dose and register 3D dose distributions with high resolution while maintaining tissue-equivalent properties. Typical methods used to read the recorded signal in a polymer gel dosimeter, such as magnetic resonance imaging, X-ray tomography, and ultrasound-based techniques include complex and expensive instruments. On the other hand, there are low-cost alternatives like optical methods that can be optimized and designed for the study of polymer gel dosimetry. The objective of this study is to present the design, construction, development, and characterization of a low-cost laser scanner for bi-dimensional PGD analysis. With this equipment, characterization and optimization assays were performed on typical samples, and compared to those obtained by commercial or validated instruments with similar results, proving the capacity of the designed instrument as a reading tool for polymeric gel dosimetry.