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. 2017 Apr-Jun;7(2):108-113.

An Approach in Radiation Therapy Treatment Planning: A Fast, GPU-Based Monte Carlo Method

Mojtaba Karbalaee  1 , Daryoush Shahbazi-Gahrouei  1 , Mohammad B Tavakoli  1
Affiliations

An Approach in Radiation Therapy Treatment Planning: A Fast, GPU-Based Monte Carlo Method

Mojtaba Karbalaee et al. J Med Signals Sens. 2017 Apr-Jun.

Abstract

An accurate and fast radiation dose calculation is essential for successful radiation radiotherapy. The aim of this study was to implement a new graphic processing unit (GPU) based radiation therapy treatment planning for accurate and fast dose calculation in radiotherapy centers. A program was written for parallel running based on GPU. The code validation was performed by EGSnrc/DOSXYZnrc. Moreover, a semi-automatic, rotary, asymmetric phantom was designed and produced using a bone, the lung, and the soft tissue equivalent materials. All measurements were performed using a Mapcheck dosimeter. The accuracy of the code was validated using the experimental data, which was obtained from the anthropomorphic phantom as the gold standard. The findings showed that, compared with those of DOSXYZnrc in the virtual phantom and for most of the voxels (>95%), <3% dose-difference or 3 mm distance-to-agreement (DTA) was found. Moreover, considering the anthropomorphic phantom, compared to the Mapcheck dose measurements, <5% dose-difference or 5 mm DTA was observed. Fast calculation speed and high accuracy of GPU-based Monte Carlo method in dose calculation may be useful in routine radiation therapy centers as the core and main component of a treatment planning verification system.

Keywords: Dosimetry; GPU; fast monte carlo; phantom; radiotherapy treatment planning.

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Conflict of interest statement

There are no conflicts of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Designed and fabricated anthropomorphic phantoms
Figure 2
Figure 2
The schematic setup of the Mapcheck (virtual) and the anthropomorphic phantoms (field size=5×5)
Figure 3
Figure 3
Flowchart of MCPDC for photon transport
Figure 4
Figure 4
The results of the MCPDC simulation with fully tuned energy spectrum compared to DOSXYZnrc and the experimental measurements in the water phantom
Figure 5
Figure 5
Comparison of dose distribution for both the written code and the experimental measurements for the designed and fabricated phantoms
Figure 6
Figure 6
Comparison of dose distribution of the written code and DOSXYZnrc. (a) Coronal view at x=0 and (b) sagittal view at z=10cm
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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