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. 2024 Aug:124:104485.
doi: 10.1016/j.ejmp.2024.104485. Epub 2024 Jul 25.

An interface tool to parametrize treatment plans for the TrueBeam radiotherapy system into TOPAS parameter control files for Monte Carlo simulation

Ramon Ortiz  1 , Daren Sawkey  2 , Bruce Faddegon  1 , Naoki D-Kondo  1 , José Ramos-Méndez  3
Affiliations

An interface tool to parametrize treatment plans for the TrueBeam radiotherapy system into TOPAS parameter control files for Monte Carlo simulation

Ramon Ortiz et al. Phys Med. 2024 Aug.

Abstract

Purpose: The Monte Carlo (MC) method, the gold standard method for radiotherapy dose calculations, is underused in clinical research applications mainly due to computational speed limitations. Another reason is the time-consuming and error prone conversion of treatment plan specifications into MC parameters. To address this issue, we developed an interface tool that creates a set of TOPAS parameter control files (PCF) from information exported from a clinical treatment planning system (TPS) for plans delivered by the TrueBeam radiotherapy system.

Methods: The interface allows the user to input DICOM-RT files, exported from a TPS and containing the plan parameters, and choose different multileaf-collimator models, variance reduction technique parameters, scoring quantities and simulation output formats. Radiation sources are precomputed phase space files obtained from Varian. Based on this information, ready-to-run TOPAS PCF that incorporate the position and angular rotation of the TrueBeam dynamic collimation devices, gantry, couch, and patient according to treatment plan specifications are created.

Results: Dose distributions computed using these PCF were compared against predictions from commercial TPS for different clinical treatment plans and techniques (3D-CRT, IMRT step-and-shoot and VMAT) to evaluate the performance of the interface. The agreement between dose distributions from TOPAS and TPS (>98 % pass ratio in the gamma test) confirmed the correct parametrization of treatment plan specifications into MC PCF.

Conclusions: This interface tool is expected to widen the use of MC methods in the clinical medical physics field by facilitating the straightforward transfer of treatment plan parameters from commercial TPS into MC PCF.

Keywords: Dose calculation; Monte Carlo; Treatment planning system; VMAT.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
(a) TOPAS PCF chain. Arrows indicate the inclusion of the information in the file that is being pointed to using the includeFile command. (b) TrueBeam LINAC components modeled in TOPAS (jaws in X-axis in red, jaws in Y-axis in blue, base plate in yellow, MLC in grey, and mylar window in green).
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Axial views of gamma index map at the center of the PTV computed by the TPS and TOPAS, and DVH’s of relevant volumes in (a) case 2, (b) case 3, and (c) case 4.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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