title: Superposition dose calculation incorporating Monte Carlo generated electron track kernels.
abstract: The superposition/convolution method and the transport of pregenerated Monte Carlo electron track data have been combined into the Super-Monte Carlo (SMC) method, an accurate 3-D x-ray dose calculation algorithm. The primary dose (dose due to electrons ejected by primary photons) is calculated by transporting pregenerated (in water) Monte Carlo electron tracks from each primary photon interaction site, weighted by the terma for that site. The length of each electron step is scaled by the inverse of the density of the medium at the beginning of the step. Because the density scaling of the electron tracks is performed for each individual transport step, the limitations of the macroscopic scaling of kernels (in the superposition algorithm) are overcome. This time-consuming step-by-step transport is only performed for the primary dose calculation, where current superposition methods are most lacking. The scattered dose (dose due to electrons set in motion by scattered photons) is calculated by superposition. In both a water-lung-water phantom and a two lung-block phantom, SMC dose distributions are more consistent with Monte Carlo generated dose distributions than are superposition dose distributions, especially for small fields and high energies-for an 18-MV, 5 X 5-cm(2) beam, the central axis dose discrepancy from Monte Carlo is reduced from 4.5% using superposition to 1.5% using SMC. The computation time for this technique is approximately 2 h (depending on the simulation history), 20 times slower than superposition, but 15 times faster than a full Monte Carlo simulation (on our platform).
authors.affiliation: Medical Physics Department, Royal Adelaide Hospital, Australia. pkeall@physics.adelaide.edu.au
authors.forename: P J
authors.initials: PJ
authors.lastname: Keall
authors.forename: P W
authors.initials: PW
authors.lastname: Hoban
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D055592:Biophysical Phenomena; D001703:Biophysics; D004583:Electrons / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D006801:Humans; D008168:Lung / Q000528:radiation effects; D009010:Monte Carlo Method; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000532:radiotherapy; D019047:Phantoms, Imaging; D011880:Radiotherapy Planning, Computer-Assisted / Q000379:methods* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D011882:Radiotherapy, High-Energy; D014867:Water
chemical_list: D014867:Water