• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Medical Physics Conference
• /
• 2002.09a
• /
• pp.109-112
• /
• 2002

Using Monte Carlo calculations the effects of longitudinal magnetic fields on the beam profiles produced by clinical electron beam were studied. The Monte Carlo calculations were performed using the EGS4 code system modified to account for external magnetic fields. The beam profiles for a 6 MeV electron beam with longitudinal magnetic fields of 0.5-3.0 T were calculated. As a result of these calculations we found that the penumbra widths can be reduced with increased magnetic fields. This means that the electron therapy benefits from the external magnetic fields.

• Journal of radiological science and technology
• /
• v.23 no.2
• /
• pp.75-79
• /
• 2000

This study was performed for the clinical applications applying the Monte Carlo methods. In this study we calculated the absorbed dose distributions for the 6 MeV electron beam in water phantom and compared the results with measured values. The energy data of electron beam used in Monte Carlo calculation is the energy distribution for 6 MeV electron beam which is assumed as a Gaussian form. We calculated percent depth doses and beam profiles for three field sizes of $10{\times}10,\;15{\times}15$, and $20{\times}20\;cm^2$ in water phantom using Monte Carlo methods and measured those data using a semiconductor detector and other devices. We found that the calculated percent depth doses and beam profiles agree with the measured values approximately. However, the calculated beam profiles at the edge of the fields were estimated to be lower than the measured values. The reason for that result is that we did not consider the angular distributions of the electrons in phantom surface and contamination of X-rays in our calculations. In conclusion, in order to apply the Monte Carlo methods to the clinical calculations we are to study the source models for electron beam of the linear accelerator beforehand.

• Journal of Radiopharmaceuticals and Molecular Probes
• /
• v.3 no.1
• /
• pp.18-24
• /
• 2017

Patient-specific image-based internal dosimetry involves using the patient's individual anatomy and spatial distribution of radioactivity over time to obtain an absorbed dose calculation. Individual absorbed dose was calculated by accumulated activity multiply S-value of each organs. The aim of this study was to calculate the S-values using Monte Carlo simulation in monkey and mouse and evaluation of absorbed dose in each organ. Self-irradiation S-value of monkey heart self-irradiation was 3.15E-03 mGy-g/MBq-s, lung self-irradiation was 8.94E-04 mGy-g/MBq-s and liver self-irradiation S-value was 2.23E-03 mGy-g/MBq-s. Mouse heart self-irradiation S-value was 1.95E-01 mGy-g/MBq-s, lung was 9.59E-02 mGy-g/MBq-s, and liver was 1.40E-03 mGy-g/MBq-s. The results of this study show that the calculation protocol of image based individual absorbed dose of each organ using Monte Carlo simulation. Therefore, this study may be applied to calculate human specific absorbed dose.

• Progress in Medical Physics
• /
• v.18 no.4
• /
• pp.226-232
• /
• 2007

We studied a Monte Carlo simulation of the proton beam delivery system at the National Cancer Center (NCC) using the Geant4 Monte Carlo toolkit and tested its feasibility as a dose verification framework. The Monte Carlo technique for dose calculation methodology has been recognized as the most accurate way for understanding the dose distribution in given materials. In order to take advantage of this methodology for application to external-beam radiotherapy, a precise modeling of the nozzle elements along with the beam delivery path and correct initial beam characteristics are mandatory. Among three different treatment modes, double/single-scattering, uniform scanning and pencil beam scanning, we have modeled and simulated the double-scattering mode for the nozzle elements, including all components and varying the time and space with the Geant4.8.2 Monte Carlo code. We have obtained simulation data that showed an excellent correlation to the measured dose distributions at a specific treatment depth. We successfully set up the Monte Carlo simulation platform for the NCC proton therapy facility. It can be adapted to the precise dosimetry for therapeutic proton beam use at the NCC. Additional Monte Carlo work for the full proton beam energy range can be performed.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Medical Physics Conference
• /
• 2003.09a
• /
• pp.82-82
• /
• 2003

Introduction: With the development of dose calculation algorithms for electron beams, 3D RTP systerns are available for electron beam dose distribution commercially. However, no studies evaluated the accuracy of dose calculation with ADAC Pinnacle system for electron beams. So, the accuracy of the ADAC system is investigated by comparing electron dose distributions from ADAC system against the BEAMnrc/DOSXYZnrc. Methods: A total of 33 breast cancer patients treated with 6, 9, and 12MeV electrons in our institution was selected for this study. The first part of this study is to compare the dose distributions of measurement, TPS and the BEAMnrc/DOSXYZnrc code in flat water phantom at gantry zero position and for a 10 ${\times}$ 10 $\textrm{cm}^2$ field. The second part is to evaluate the monitor unit obtained from measurement and TPS. Adding actual breast patient's irregular blocks to the first part, monitor units to deliver 100 cGy to the dose maximum (dmax) were calculated from measurement and 3D RTP system. In addition, the dose distributions using blocks were compared between TPS and the BEAMnrc/DOSXYZnrc code. Finally, the effects of tissue inhomogeneities were studied by comparing dose distributions from Pinnacle and Monte Carlo method on CT data sets. Results: The dose distributions calculated using water phantom by the TPS and the BEAMnrc/ DOSXYZnrc code agreed well with measured data within 2% of the maximum dose. The maximum differences of monitor unit between measured and Pinnacle TPS in flat water phantom at gantry zero position were 4% for 6 MeV and 2% for 9 and 12 MeV electrons. In real-patient cases, comparison of depth doses and lateral dose profiles calculated by the Pinnacle TPS, with BEAMnrc/DOSXYZnrc code has generally shown good agreement with relative difference less than +/-3%. Discussion: For comparisons of real-patient cases, the maximum differences between the TPS and BEAMnrc/DOSXYZnrc on CT data were 10%. These discrepancies were due in part to the inaccurate dose calculation of the TPS, so that it needs to be improved properly. Conclusions: On the basis of the results presented in this study, we can conclude that the ADAC Pinnacle system for electron beams is capable of giving results absolutely comparable to those of a Monte Carlo calculation.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
• /
• v.51 no.8
• /
• pp.2018-2025
• /
• 2019

This study systematically compared two hybrid deterministic/Monte Carlo transport codes, ADVANTG/MCNP and MAVRIC, in solving a difficult shielding problem for a real-world spent fuel storage cask. Both hybrid codes were developed based on the consistent adjoint driven importance sampling (CADIS) methodology but with different implementations. The dose rate distributions on the cask surface were of primary interest and their predicted results were compared with each other and with a straightforward MCNP calculation as a baseline case. Forward-Weighted CADIS was applied for optimization toward uniform statistical uncertainties for all tallies on the cask surface. Both ADVANTG/MCNP and MAVRIC achieved substantial improvements in overall computational efficiencies, especially for gamma-ray transport. Compared with the continuous-energy ADVANTG/MCNP calculations, the coarse-group MAVRIC calculations underestimated the neutron dose rates on the cask's side surface by an approximate factor of two and slightly overestimated the dose rates on the cask's top and side surfaces for fuel gamma and hardware gamma sources because of the impact of multigroup approximation. The fine-group MAVRIC calculations improved to a certain extent and the addition of continuous-energy treatment to the Monte Carlo code in the latest MAVRIC sequence greatly reduced these discrepancies. For the two continuous-energy calculations of ADVANTG/MCNP and MAVRIC, a remaining difference of approximately 30% between the neutron dose rates on the cask's side surface resulted from inconsistent use of thermal scattering treatment of hydrogen in concrete.

• Progress in Medical Physics
• /
• v.13 no.3
• /
• pp.149-155
• /
• 2002

Recent advances in radiation transport algorithms, computer hardware performance, and parallel computing make the clinical use of Monte Carlo based dose calculations possible. To compare the speed and accuracies of dose calculations between different developed codes, a benchmark tests were proposed at the XIIth ICCR (International Conference on the use of Computers in Radiation Therapy, Heidelberg, Germany 2000). A Monte Carlo treatment planning comprised of 28 various Intel Pentium CPUs was implemented for routine clinical use. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the performance of our system using the above benchmark tests. The benchmark procedures are comprised of three parts. a) speed of photon beams dose calculation inside a given phantom of 30.5 cm$\times$39.5 cm $\times$ 30 cm deep and filled with 5 ㎣ voxels within 2% statistical uncertainty. b) speed of electron beams dose calculation inside the same phantom as that of the photon beams. c) accuracy of photon and electron beam calculation inside heterogeneous slab phantom compared with the reference results of EGS4/PRESTA calculation. As results of the speed benchmark tests, it took 5.5 minutes to achieve less than 2% statistical uncertainty for 18 MV photon beams. Though the net calculation for electron beams was an order of faster than the photon beam, the overall calculation time was similar to that of photon beam case due to the overhead time to maintain parallel processing. Since our Monte Carlo code is EGSnrc, which is an improved version of EGS4, the accuracy tests of our system showed, as expected, very good agreement with the reference data. In conclusion, our Monte Carlo treatment planning system shows clinically meaningful results. Though other more efficient codes are developed such like MCDOSE and VMC＋＋, BEAMnrc based on EGSnrc code system may be used for routine clinical Monte Carlo treatment planning in conjunction with clustering technique.

• Progress in Medical Physics
• /
• v.31 no.4
• /
• pp.163-171
• /
• 2020

Purpose: In this study, the accuracies of electron Monte Carlo (eMC) calculation algorithms were evaluated to determine whether electron beams were modeled by optional air profiles (APs) designed for each applicator size. Methods: Electron beams with the energies of 6, 9, 12, and 16 MeV for VitalBeam (Varian Medical System, Palo Alto, CA, USA) and 6, 9, 12, 16, and 20 MeV for Clinac iX (Varian Medical System) were used. Optional APs were measured at the source-to-detector distance of 95 cm with jaw openings appropriate for each machine, electron beam energy, and applicator size. The measured optional APs were postprocessed and converted into the w2CAD format. Then, the electron beams were modeled and calculated with and without optional APs. Measured profiles, percentage depth doses, penumbras with respect to each machine, and energy were compared to calculated dose distributions. Results: For VitalBeam, the profile differences between the measurement and calculation were reduced by 0.35%, 0.15%, 0.14%, and 0.38% at 6, 9, 12, and 16 MeV, respectively, when the beams were modeled with APs. For Clinac iX, the differences were decreased by 0.16%, -0.31%, 0.94%, 0.42%, and 0.74%, at 6, 9, 12, 16, and 20 MeV, respectively, with the insertion of APs. Of note, no significant improvements in penumbra and percentage depth dose were observed, although the beam models were configured with APs. Conclusions: The accuracy of the eMC calculation can be improved in profiles when electron beams are modeled with optional APs.

• Progress in Medical Physics
• /
• v.22 no.4
• /
• pp.190-197
• /
• 2011

Currently, the dose distribution calculation used by commercial treatment planning systems (TPSs) for high-dose rate (HDR) brachytherapy is derived from point and line source approximation method recommended by AAPM Task Group 43 (TG-43). However, the study of Monte Carlo (MC) simulation is required in order to assess the accuracy of dose calculation around three-dimensional Ir-192 source. In this study, geometry factor was calculated using segmented sources integration method by dividing microSelectron HDR Ir-192 source into smaller parts. The Monte Carlo code (MCNPX 2.5.0) was used to calculate the dose rate $\dot{D}(r,\theta)$ at a point ($r,\theta$) away from a HDR Ir-192 source in spherical water phantom with 30 cm diameter. Finally, anisotropy function and radial dose function were calculated from obtained results. The obtained geometry factor was compared with that calculated from line source approximation. Similarly, obtained anisotropy function and radial dose function were compared with those derived from MCPT results by Williamson. The geometry factor calculated from segmented sources integration method and line source approximation was within 0.2% for $r{\geq}0.5$ cm and 1.33% for r=0.1 cm, respectively. The relative-root mean square error (R-RMSE) of anisotropy function obtained by this study and Williamson was 2.33% for r=0.25 cm and within 1% for r>0.5 cm, respectively. The R-RMSE of radial dose function was 0.46% at radial distance from 0.1 to 14.0 cm. The geometry factor acquired from segmented sources integration method and line source approximation was in good agreement for $r{\geq}0.1$ cm. However, application of segmented sources integration method seems to be valid, since this method using three-dimensional Ir-192 source provides more realistic geometry factor. The anisotropy function and radial dose function estimated from MCNPX in this study and MCPT by Williamson are in good agreement within uncertainty of Monte Carlo codes except at radial distance of r=0.25 cm. It is expected that Monte Carlo code used in this study could be applied to other sources utilized for brachytherapy.

• Progress in Medical Physics
• /
• v.34 no.2
• /
• pp.15-22
• /
• 2023

This study compared the dose calculated using the electron Monte Carlo (eMC) dose calculation algorithm employing the old version (eMC V13.7) of the Varian Eclipse treatment-planning system (TPS) and its newer version (eMC V16.1). The eMC V16.1 was configured using the same beam data as the eMC V13.7. Beam data measured using the VitalBeam linear accelerator were implemented. A box-shaped water phantom (30×30×30 cm³) was generated in the TPS. Consequently, the TPS with eMC V13.7 and eMC V16.1 calculated the dose to the water phantom delivered by electron beams of various energies with a field size of 10×10 cm². The calculations were repeated while changing the dose-smoothing levels and normalization method. Subsequently, the percentage depth dose and lateral profile of the dose distributions acquired by eMC V13.7 and eMC V16.1 were analyzed. In addition, the dose-volume histogram (DVH) differences between the two versions for the heterogeneous phantom with bone and lung inserted were compared. The doses calculated using eMC V16.1 were similar to those calculated using eMC V13.7 for the homogenous phantoms. However, a DVH difference was observed in the heterogeneous phantom, particularly in the bone material. The dose distribution calculated using eMC V16.1 was comparable to that of eMC V13.7 in the case of homogenous phantoms. The version changes resulted in a different DVH for the heterogeneous phantoms. However, further investigations to assess the DVH differences in patients and experimental validations for eMC V16.1, particularly for heterogeneous geometry, are required.