Complex interventional radiology (IR) procedures contribute an increasing percentage of the overall medical radiation exposure of the population making accurate dosimetry a challenge. Magnetic resonance (MR) based polymer gel dosimetry has been widely employed in complex dosimetric problems in radiotherapy. The aim of this paper is to investigate the feasibility of normoxic gel dosimetry in IR. Dose response, energy dependence and dose rate dependence were investigated in irradiation setups

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... vant to IR for a particular normoxic gel, based on Methacrylic Acid (MAA) as the monomer and including THPC (Tetrakis-hydroxy-methyl-phosphonium chloride) as antioxidant.. The gel presents a linear dose response beyond a 25 cGy threshold. While no significant energy dependence was observed in the useful range of interventional radiology (80-110kVp) at the low dose level, a linear correlation between gel response and dose rate was observed in the range of dose rates relevant to IR (5-8 cGy/min). These results may suggest that oxygen scavenging of free radicals and polymerization inhibition reactions by hydroquinone have a quantitative effect at gel response at very low dose rates.