Development of parallel monte carlo electron and photon transport (PMCEPT) code III: Applications to medical radiation physics

Minimizing the differences between dose distributions calculated at the treatment planning stage and those delivered to the patient is an essential requirement for successful radiotheraphy. Accurate calculation of dose distributions in the treatment planning process is important and can be done only by using a Monte Carlo calculation of particle transport. In this paper, we perform a further validation of our previously developed parallel Monte Carlo electron and photon transport (PMCEPT) code [Kum and Lee, J. Korean Phys. Soc. 47, 716 (2005) and Kim and Kum, J. Korean Phys. Soc. 49, 1640 (2006)] for applications to clinical radiation problems. A linear accelerator, Siemens’ Primus 6 MV, was modeled and commissioned. A thorough validation includes both small fields, closely related to the intensity modulated radiation treatment (IMRT), and large fields. Two-dimensional comparisons with film measurements were also performed. The PMCEPT results, in general, agreed well with the measured data within a maximum error of about 2%. However, considering the experimental errors, the PMCEPT results can provide the gold standard of dose distributions for radiotherapy. The computing time was also much faster, compared to that needed for experiments, although it is still a bottleneck for direct applications to the daily routine treatment planning procedure.