title: Parameterization of brachytherapy source phase space file for Monte Carlo-based clinical brachytherapy dose calculation.
abstract: A common approach to implementing the Monte Carlo method for the calculation of brachytherapy radiation dose deposition is to use a phase space file containing information on particles emitted from a brachytherapy source. However, the loading of the phase space file during the dose calculation consumes a large amount of computer random access memory, imposing a higher requirement for computer hardware. In this study, we propose a method to parameterize the information (e.g., particle location, direction and energy) stored in the phase space file by using several probability distributions. This method was implemented for dose calculations of a commercial Ir-192 high dose rate source. Dose calculation accuracy of the parameterized source was compared to the results observed using the full phase space file in a simple water phantom and in a clinical breast cancer case. The results showed the parameterized source at a size of 200 kB was as accurate as the phase space file represented source of 1.1 GB. By using the parameterized source representation, a compact Monte Carlo job can be designed, which allows an easy setup for parallel computing in brachytherapy planning.
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiation Oncology, Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ 08901, USA.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: W
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Zou
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Khan
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Haffty
authors.forename: N J
authors.initials: NJ
authors.lastname: Yue
mesh_terms: D001918:Brachytherapy / Q000379:methods*; D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000532:radiotherapy; D006801:Humans; D009010:Monte Carlo Method; D019047:Phantoms, Imaging; D011829:Radiation Dosage; D011879:Radiotherapy Dosage; D011880:Radiotherapy Planning, Computer-Assisted / Q000379:methods*