Title :
Geant4 Based Monte Carlo Dose Calculation Engine for Radiation Therapy
Author :
Xiao, Shanjie ; Yang, Xue ; Sztejnberg, Manuel ; Jevremovic, Tatjana
Author_Institution :
Utah Nucl. Eng. Program, Univ. of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, USA
fDate :
4/1/2010 12:00:00 AM
Abstract :
Radiation dose calculation engine as a base for X-ray radiation treatment planning has been developed using Geant4 Monte Carlo toolkit and applying highly efficient voxel geometry with flexible material definition. With this engine we can easily customize flexible patient and beam modules, thus obtaining a common backend applicable to various radiation therapy planning systems. The engine was tested using the available experimental data for a water phantom and using the real CT data in X-ray therapies; the calculated doses were compared also against the MCNP5/X values. The results show that this Geant4 based radiation dose calculation engine has much higher computational speed than the models generated by an MCNP5/X-based treatment planning tool without any loss of accuracy. In addition, Geant4 is an open source code and applies no restrictions to the users.
Keywords :
Monte Carlo methods; computerised tomography; dosimetry; medical computing; phantoms; radiation therapy; Geant4 Monte Carlo toolkit; MCNP5/X value; X-ray radiation treatment planning; X-ray therapies; computerised tomography; efficient voxel geometry; flexible material definition; open source code; radiation dose calculation engine; radiation therapy; water phantom; Dose calculation; Geant4; Monte Carlo; medical physics;
Journal_Title :
Nuclear Science, IEEE Transactions on
DOI :
10.1109/TNS.2009.2039714