Complexity of Monte Carlo and deterministic dose-calculation methods

Grid-based deterministic dose-calculation methods for radiotherapy planning require the use of six-dimensional phase space grids. Because of the large number of phase space dimensions, a growing number of medical physicists appear to believe that grid-based deterministic dose-calculation methods are not competitive with Monte Carlo methods. We argue that this conclusion may be premature. Our results do suggest, however, that finite difference or finite element schemes with orders of accuracy greater than one will probably be needed if such methods are to compete well with Monte Carlo methods for dose calculations.