COMS eye plaque brachytherapy dosimetry simulations for 103Pd, 125I, and 131Cs

Monte Carlo (MC) simulations were performed to estimate brachytherapy dose distributions for Collaborative Ocular Melanoma Study (COMS) eye plaques. Brachytherapy seed models 200, 6711, and CS-1 Rev2 carrying Pd-103, I-125, and Cs-131 radionuclides, respectively, were modeled and benchmarked against previously published values. Calculated dose rate constants (MC)Lambda were 0.684, 0.924, and 1.052 cGy h(-1) U-1 (+/- 2.6%, k=1 uncertainty) for models 200, 6711, and CS-1 Rev2, respectively. The seeds were distributed into 10, 12, 14, 16, 18, 20, and 22 mm-diameter COMS eye plaques. Simulations were performed in both heterogeneous and homogeneous environments, where the latter were in-water and the former included the silastic seed carrier insert and gold-alloy plaque. MC-based homogenous central axis dose distributions agreed within 2%+/- 1% (+/- 1 s.d.) to hand-calculated values. For heterogeneous simulations, notable photon attenuation was observed, with dose reduction at 5 mm of 19%, 11%, and 9% for Pd-103, I-125, and Cs-131, respectively. A depth-dependent correction factor was derived to correct homogenous central-axis dose distributions for plaque component heterogeneities, which were found to be significant at short radial distances. (C) 2008 American Association of Physicists in Medicine.