Experimental validation of Monte Carlo based treatment planning system in bone density equivalent media
Article Category: Research Article
Published Online: Sep 16, 2020
Page range: 495 - 504
Received: Jun 10, 2020
Accepted: Jul 09, 2020
DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/raon-2020-0051
© 2020 Djeni Smilovic Radojcic, Bozidar Casar, David Rajlic, Manda Svabic Kolacio, Ignasi Mendez, Nevena Obajdin, Dea Dundara Debeljuh, Slaven Jurkovic, published by Sciendo
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.
Introduction
Advanced, Monte Carlo (MC) based dose calculation algorithms, determine absorbed dose as dose to medium-in-medium (
Materials and methods
In our study, we used a 6 MV photon beam from a linear accelerator. To evaluate the accuracy of the TPS calculation approaches, measurements with a Farmer type chamber in a semi-anthropomorphic phantom were compared to those obtained by two calculation options. The comparison was made for three parts of the phantom having different densities, with a focus on the BDE part.
Results
Measured and calculated doses were in agreement for water and lung equivalent density materials, regardless of the calculation mode. However, in the BDE part of the phantom, mean dose differences between the calculation options ranged from 5.7 to 8.3%, depending on the method used. In the BDE part of the phantom, neither of the two calculation options were consistent with experimentally determined absorbed doses.
Conclusions
Based on our findings, we proposed a supplement to the current methodology for the verification of commercial MC based TPS by performing additional measurements in BDE material.