Feasibility of PET/CT 3-D dosimetry for proton-activated PRESAGE® dosimeters

A feasibility study is considered using PRESAGE® dosimeters as a direct dosimetry comparison tool to correlate proton activation to dose in a clinical beam. Proton activation measured by PET/CT has been studied as a future tool method for in vivo dosimetry. PRESAGE® is a 3D offline dosimeter that has a material composition giving it a longer activation decay time than similar dosimeters allowing easier measurements. In this study, the PRESAGE® positron emissions were measured by PET and directly compared to dose measurements made by optical-CT to make spatial comparisons of dose and proton activation. Profiles along the central axis of the beam found a shift in the distal-80% resulting in the proton activation profile being 1 cm shallower than the dose profile. Cross beam profiles demonstrated little discrepancy between long (3 hour) and short (30 minute) PET scan times.