Characterization and performances of a monitoring ionization chamber dedicated to IBA-universal irradiation head for Pencil Beam Scanning

Every radiotherapy center has to be equipped with real-time beam monitoring devices. In 2008, we developed an ionization chamber in collaboration with the IBA (Ion Beam Applications) company. This monitoring device called IC2/3 was developed to be used in IBA universal irradiation head for Pencil Beam Scanning (PBS). Here we present the characterization of the IC2/3 monitor in the energy and flux ranges used in protontherapy. The equipment has been tested with an IBA cyclotron able to deliver proton beams from 70 to 230 MeV. This beam monitoring device has been validated and is now installed at the Westdeutsches Protonentherapiezentrum Essen protontherapy center (WPE, Germany). The results obtained in both terms of spatial resolution and dose measurements are at least equal to the initial specifications needed for PBS purposes. The detector measures the dose with a relative uncertainty lower than 1% in the range from 0.5 Gy/min to 8 Gy/min while the spatial resolution is better than 250 μ m . The technology has been patented and five IC2/3 chambers were delivered to IBA. Nowadays, IBA produces the IC2/3 beam monitoring device as a part of its Proteus 235 product.