MO-A-BRB-02: Facts and Fiction of Flattening Filter Free (FF-FFF) X-Rays Beams

Medical Physics
Joseph Y Ting

Abstract

The primary purpose of the FFF X-rays is to provide much higher dose rates available for treatments. For example, FFF X-rays from Varian TrueBEAM can deliver 1400 MU/minute for 6 MV X-rays and 2400 MU/minutes for 10 MV X-rays. Higher dose rates have definite clinical benefits in organ motion management. For example, larger dose fractions can be delivered in a single breath-hold or gated portion of a breathing cycle. In SRS or SBRT treatments, large MUs are often required and FFF X-ray beams can deliver these large MUs in much shorter "beam-on" time. With shorten treatment time, these FFF X-rays improve patient comfort and dose delivery accuracy. FFF X-ray beams may become one of the necessary equipment configurations for SBRT and/or SRS treatments, in the future. This presentation will address some unique issues dealing with the FFF X-rays: (1) FIELD SIZES flattening Filter Free (FFF) X-ray beam has been in clinical use for quite some time. However, not until recently, these FFF beams are used in limited, small field sizes, for example, in Tomotherapy and CyberKnife machines.Varian TrueBEAM allows the FFF X-ray beam to have up to 40 × 40 cm field sizes for both 6 and 10 MV X-rays (15 MV FFF X-rays are not yet released for clini...Continue Reading

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