Development of dosimetric procedures for experimental ultra-high dose rate irradiation at a clinical linear accelerator

As radiotherapy using ultra-high dose rates has gained new interest, the dosimetric challenges arising at these conditions needs to be addressed. Ionization chambers suffer from a large decrease in ion collection efficiency due to ion recombination, making on-line dosimetry difficult. In this work we present experimental setups and dosimetric procedures for FLASH irradiation of cells, zebrafish embryos and small animals using a 10 MeV electron beam at a modified clinical linear accelerator, and describe the dosimetric steps required to initiate clinical trials. The dosimetric equipment used for our pre-clinical experiments consisted of radiochromic film, thermoluminescent dosimeters, a Farmer-type ionization chamber and phantom material mimicking the experimental setup for irradiation. In preparation for small animal irradiation, dose profiles and depth dose curves were measured for all collimator sizes. The average dose rates were ≥620 Gy/s, ≥640 Gy/s and ≥400 Gy/s for cells, zebrafish embryos and small animals, respectively.