Characterization of an optically stimulated dosimeter for dentomaxillofacial dosimetry.

OBJECTIVE: The objective of this study was to examine the suitability of optically stimulated luminescent dosimeters (OSLD) for point dosimetry of maxillofacial radiographic examinations.

STUDY DESIGN: The dose response of OSLD nanoDot dosimeters was evaluated over the range of 10 μGy to 4900 μGy x-radiation. The angular dependence of the OSLD nanoDots was examined and compared with that of thermoluminescent dosimeter (TLD) chips. The concordance between OSDL- and TLD-measured absorbed doses at selected anatomic sites in an anthropomorphometric phantom was examined.

RESULTS: OSLD-measured doses were not significantly different from the actual delivered dose, as determined by an ionization chamber. The dose response is linear over the dose response over the examined dose range. Angular variation of OSLD dosimeters ranged from 88% to 109%; however, the magnitude of this variation was not significantly different from that of TLDs. There was a good concordance between OSLD- and TLD-measured absorbed doses.

CONCLUSIONS: The OSLD nanoDots dosimeter system performs as well as currently used TLD systems and effective dose estimates using this new system did not differ significantly from current TLD-based dose estimates.