Abstract
The use of phase space in medical linear accelerator Monte Carlo (MC) simulations significantly improves the execution time and leads to results comparable to those obtained from full calculations. The classical representation of phase space stores directly the information of millions of particles, producing bulky files. This paper presents a virtual source model (VSM) based on a reconstruction algorithm, taking as input a compressed file of roughly 800 kb derived from phase space data freely available in the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) database. This VSM includes two main components; primary and scattered particle sources, with a specific reconstruction method developed for each. Energy spectra and other relevant variables were extracted from IAEA phase space and stored in the input description data file for both sources. The VSM was validated for three photon beams: Elekta Precise 6 MV/10 MV and a Varian TrueBeam 6 MV. Extensive calculations in water and comparisons between dose distributions of the VSM and IAEA phase space were performed to estimate the VSM precision. The Geant4 MC toolkit in multi-threaded mode (Geant4-[mt]) was used for fast dose calculations and optimized memory use. Four field configurations were chosen for dose calculation validation to test field size and symmetry effects, , , and for squared fields, and for an asymmetric rectangular field. Good agreement in terms of formalism, for 3%/3 mm and 2%/3 mm criteria, for each evaluated radiation field and photon beam was obtained within a computation time of 60 h on a single WorkStation for a 3 mm voxel matrix. Analyzing the VSM's precision in high dose gradient regions, using the distance to agreement concept (DTA), showed also satisfactory results. In all investigated cases, the mean DTA was less than 1 mm in build-up and penumbra regions. In regards to calculation efficiency, the event processing speed is six times faster using Geant4-[mt] compared to sequential Geant4, when running the same simulation code for both. The developed VSM for 6 MV/10 MV beams widely used, is a general concept easy to adapt in order to reconstruct comparable beam qualities for various linac configurations, facilitating its integration for MC treatment planning purposes.
Original language | English |
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Article number | 085008 |
Journal | Physics in Medicine and Biology |
Volume | 63 |
Issue number | 8 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Apr 13 2018 |
Externally published | Yes |
Funding
This work was achieved with the support of the National Center for Scientific and Technical Research (CNRST, Morocco) in the frame of excellence scholarships research program.
Funders | Funder number |
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National Center for Scientific and Technical Research | |
Centre National pour la Recherche Scientifique et Technique |
Keywords
- Geant4 in mutlti-threaded mode
- IAEA phase space format
- Monte Carlo
- dose calculation
- linear accelerator (linac)
- photon beam
- virtual source model
- Radiotherapy Dosage
- Reproducibility of Results
- Radiotherapy Planning, Computer-Assisted/methods
- Humans
- Photons
- Normal Distribution
- Algorithms
- Computer Simulation
- Programming Languages
- Software
- Monte Carlo Method
- Particle Accelerators
- Databases, Factual