TY - JOUR
T1 - Validation of a track repeating algorithm for intensity modulated proton therapy
T2 - Clinical cases study
AU - Yepes, Pablo P.
AU - Eley, John G.
AU - Liu, Amy
AU - Mirkovic, Dragan
AU - Randeniya, Sharmalee
AU - Titt, Uwe
AU - Mohan, Radhe
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors acknowledge the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) at The University of Texas at Austin for providing High Performance Computing resources that have contributed to the research results reported within this paper. URL: Www.tacc.utexas.edu. This work was also supported in part by NIH award NCRR S10RR02950, an IBM Shared University Research (SUR) Award in partnership with CISCO, Qlogic and Adaptive Computing, and Rice University.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2016 Institute of Physics and Engineering in Medicine.
PY - 2016/3/10
Y1 - 2016/3/10
N2 - Monte Carlo (MC) methods are acknowledged as the most accurate technique to calculate dose distributions. However, due its lengthy calculation times, they are difficult to utilize in the clinic or for large retrospective studies. Track-repeating algorithms, based on MC-generated particle track data in water, accelerate dose calculations substantially, while essentially preserving the accuracy of MC. In this study, we present the validation of an efficient dose calculation algorithm for intensity modulated proton therapy, the fast dose calculator (FDC), based on a track-repeating technique. We validated the FDC algorithm for 23 patients, which included 7 brain, 6 head-and-neck, 5 lung, 1 spine, 1 pelvis and 3 prostate cases. For validation, we compared FDC-generated dose distributions with those from a full-fledged Monte Carlo based on GEANT4 (G4). We compared dose-volume-histograms, 3D-gamma-indices and analyzed a series of dosimetric indices. More than 99% of the voxels in the voxelized phantoms describing the patients have a gamma-index smaller than unity for the 2%/2 mm criteria. In addition the difference relative to the prescribed dose between the dosimetric indices calculated with FDC and G4 is less than 1%. FDC reduces the calculation times from 5 ms per proton to around 5 μs.
AB - Monte Carlo (MC) methods are acknowledged as the most accurate technique to calculate dose distributions. However, due its lengthy calculation times, they are difficult to utilize in the clinic or for large retrospective studies. Track-repeating algorithms, based on MC-generated particle track data in water, accelerate dose calculations substantially, while essentially preserving the accuracy of MC. In this study, we present the validation of an efficient dose calculation algorithm for intensity modulated proton therapy, the fast dose calculator (FDC), based on a track-repeating technique. We validated the FDC algorithm for 23 patients, which included 7 brain, 6 head-and-neck, 5 lung, 1 spine, 1 pelvis and 3 prostate cases. For validation, we compared FDC-generated dose distributions with those from a full-fledged Monte Carlo based on GEANT4 (G4). We compared dose-volume-histograms, 3D-gamma-indices and analyzed a series of dosimetric indices. More than 99% of the voxels in the voxelized phantoms describing the patients have a gamma-index smaller than unity for the 2%/2 mm criteria. In addition the difference relative to the prescribed dose between the dosimetric indices calculated with FDC and G4 is less than 1%. FDC reduces the calculation times from 5 ms per proton to around 5 μs.
KW - Monte Carlo
KW - clinical
KW - dose calculation
KW - fast
KW - proton therapy
KW - track-repeating
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U2 - 10.1088/0031-9155/61/7/2633
DO - 10.1088/0031-9155/61/7/2633
M3 - Article
C2 - 26961764
AN - SCOPUS:84962288335
SN - 0031-9155
VL - 61
SP - 2633
EP - 2645
JO - Physics in medicine and biology
JF - Physics in medicine and biology
IS - 7
ER -