title: Independent dose calculations for the PEACOCK System.
abstract: An independent dose calculation method has been developed to validate intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) plans from the NOMOS PEACOCK System. After the plan is generated on the CORVUS planning system, the beam parameters are imported into an independent workstation. The beam parameters consist of intensity maps at each gantry angle and each arc position. In addition, CT scans of the patient are imported into the independent workstation to obtain the external contour of the patient. The coordinate system is defined relative to the alignment point chosen in the CORVUS plan. The independent calculation uses the pencil beam data viz tissue maximum ratio (TMR) and beam profiles for a single 1 x 0.8-cm beamlet formed by the NOMOS multileaf intensity-modulating collimator (MIMiC) leaf. The pencil beam data were measured for the 6-MV photon beam from Siemens PRIMUS linear accelerator using film dosimetry. The dose at a point is calculated using the depth and off-axis distance from a given pencil beam, corrected for its beam intensity. Isodose distributions are generated using the independent dose calculations and compared to the CORVUS plans. Isodose distributions show good agreement with the CORVUS plans for a number of clinical cases. The independent dose calculation algorithm is described in this paper.
authors: Department of Radiation Oncology, University of Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha 68198-7521, USA. akomanduri@nhsnet.org
authors: K M
authors: KM
authors: Ayyangar
authors: C B
authors: CB
authors: Saw
authors: B
authors: B
authors: Shen
authors: C A
authors: CA
authors: Enke
authors: P S
authors: PS
authors: Nizin
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D005373:Film Dosimetry; D006801:Humans; D010315:Particle Accelerators; D011878:Radiotherapy / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000379:methods; D011879:Radiotherapy Dosage; D011882:Radiotherapy, High-Energy