March 2012 - Institute of Physics and Engineering in Medicine

SCOPE | MEETING REPORTS
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results in light of the audit and were able to discover the
contributing factors in their techniques which led to
dose variations. The talk concluded with an outline of
future planned audits for other treatment modalities.
ELECTRON DOSIMETRY EQUIPMENT
Two talks highlighted innovative electron dosimetry
equipment designed and built ‘in-house’. Katie
Hillman (Kent Oncology Centre, Maidstone) presented
a talk on a design study for an electron beam energy
checking device consisting of ten individual ion
chambers set in a ‘spiral staircase’ pattern. A large
amount of development work was presented, including
the design of the chambers and the calculation of the
optimal chamber positions using water tank data.
Future work will examine a prototype phantom before
the final device is constructed. Mark Osborne (Kent
Oncology Centre, Maidstone) highlighted the
difficulties of accurate dose measurement in small
electron fields and his project to design and construct a
parallel plate ion chamber with a 2 mm-diameter
collecting electrode to overcome these problems. The
ideal characteristics of an ion chamber were discussed,
the chamber design presented and comparisons
between measurements made with the chamber and
commercially available chambers and diodes were
made. The chamber showed excellent agreement with
the diode at high energies and further work is to be
undertaken to improve its performance at low energies.
All delegates would have been familiar with the
problems that inspired Oliver Delamont’s (University
Hospital of North Staffordshire, Stoke-on-Trent) project.
Measuring electron output factors for new cut-outs can
be time consuming and difficult to fit around the clinical
schedule. The talk presented the results of an
investigation of the effects on output factor values of
applicator, field and cut-out size. By keeping applicator
and jaw settings constant, it was possible to predict the
variation in output for square cut-outs to within 1 per
cent. With more investigation into rectangular and
circular cut-outs, it was hoped to develop a system of
calculating output factors, thereby saving the time
required for measurement.
This talk concluded what was a very interesting
meeting with a diverse range of speakers highlighting
how electron treatment is developing across the UK. It
was an opportunity for delegates to see how the
difficulties and uncertainties they faced were also faced
by other centres, and often solutions were presented.
Overall, the meeting showed how electron beam
radiotherapy is being accurately and safely delivered
across the UK. n
EUROPEAN SCHOOL OF MEDICAL PHYSICS –
14TH SESSION
LEILA NICHOL Royal Surrey County Hospital
ARCHAMPS, FRANCE 13th October–22nd November 2011
I HEARD ABOUT THE European School of Medical
Physics (ESMP) through an IPEM communication. I was
delighted when I found out I had won the European
Federation of Medical Physics (EFOMP) ESMP Bursary
for Beginning Physicists to attend one week of the
programme. The school runs various week-long courses
in different areas of medical physics over 6 weeks. As I
have now decided to specialise in radiotherapy for my
Part II, I chose to attend week 4, ‘The physics of modern
radiotherapy’. The field of radiotherapy is rapidly
developing so I thought this course would be highly
relevant and valuable, as well as providing me with the
opportunity to meet a diverse range of colleagues from
around the world.
The ESMP is based at the European Scientific Institute
on the border between France and Switzerland at the
Centre Universitaire de Formation et de Recherche in
Archamps, close to Geneva (figure 1). It is a beautiful
setting surrounded by mountains. Lessons ran from
Thursday to Tuesday, with a free day on Sunday to
explore the area.
After a warm welcome by director Yves Lemoigne
(ESMP, Archamps) and supervisors Steve Webb (Royal
Marsden Hospital, Sutton) and Uwe Oelfke (Deutsches
Krebsforschungszentrum (DKFZ), Heidelberg, Germany),
day 1 began with lessons in radiobiology by Francesca
Buffa (Gray Labs, Oxford), conformal radiation
techniques by Steve Webb and inverse planning by
FIGURE 1.
The city of Geneva.
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34 | MARCH 2012 | SCOPE