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The calibration procedure in radiotherapy treatments is very important and a sensitive task due to the high doses delivered to the patients. Generally, the air-kerma cavity standards for 60Co gamma rays are graphite cavity ionization chambers. In this work a new parallel-plate graphite ionization chamber was studied to analyze its potential use as a reference instrument. In order to evaluate its performance in 60Co beams, it was submitted to several characterization tests. Moreover, Monte Carlo simulations were undertaken using the EGSnrc code to study the influence of the chamber components on its response. The results obtained showed that this new ionization chamber presented a satisfactory performance in all evaluated tests.

The aim of this work was to study the performance of a pencil ionization chamber with a sensitive volume of only 1.06 cm3 and a length of 3.0 cm, developed at the Calibration Laboratory of the IPEN, in very low-energy radiotherapy X-ray beams. These beams are still used for certain skin cancer treatments due to their rapid attenuation in tissue. The dosimeter performance was evaluated in some tests proposed by the IEC 60731 standard: short- and long-term stability and linearity of response. For a complete analysis of the dosimeter response, the EGSnrc Monte Carlo simulation was utilized to investigate the influence of its different parts on the ionization chamber response. All results of the tests were in accordance with the recommended limits, and this work shows that it is possible to extend the application of this pencil-type ionization chamber developed at the LCI.