title: Simulation with EGS4 code of external beam of radiotherapy apparatus with workstation and PC gives similar results?
abstract: This article presents a comparison between two implementations of an EGS4 Monte Carlo simulation of a radiation therapy machine. The first implementation was run on a high performance RISC workstation, and the second was run on an inexpensive PC. The simulation was performed using the MCRAD user code. The photon energy spectra, as measured at a plane transverse to the beam direction and containing the isocenter, were compared. The photons were also binned radially in order to compare the variation of the spectra with radius. With 500,000 photons recorded in each of the two simulations, the running times were 48 h and 116 h for the workstation and the PC, respectively. No significant statistical differences between the two implementations were found.
authors.affiliation: Medical Physics Department, Faculty of Medicine, University of Patras, Greece.
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Malataras
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Kappas
authors.forename: D M
authors.initials: DM
authors.lastname: Lovelock
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Mohan
mesh_terms: D003198:Computer Simulation; D006801:Humans; D008838:Microcomputers; D008905:Minicomputers; D009010:Monte Carlo Method; D010315:Particle Accelerators / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D011880:Radiotherapy Planning, Computer-Assisted / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D011882:Radiotherapy, High-Energy / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data