title: Effectiveness of the Monte Carlo method in stereotactic radiation therapy applied to quasi-homogenous brain tumors.
abstract: This study was aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of Monte Carlo (MC) method in stereotactic radiotherapy for brain tumor. The difference in doses predicted by the conventional Ray-tracing (Ray) and the advanced MC algorithms was comprehensively investigated through the simulations for phantom and patient data, actual measurement of dose distribution, and the retrospective analysis of 77 brain tumors patients. These investigations consistently showed that the MC algorithm overestimated the dose than the Ray algorithm and the MC overestimation was generally increased as decreasing the beams size and increasing the number of beams delivered. These results demonstrated that the advanced MC algorithm would be inaccurate than the conventional Raytracing algorithm when applied to a (quasi-) homogeneous brain tumors. Thus, caution may be needed to apply the MC method to brain radiosurgery or radiotherapy.
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiation Oncology, Gyeongsang National University School of Medicine and Gyeongsang National University Hospital, Jinju, Republic of Korea.|Institute of Health Sciences, Gyeongsang National University, Jinju, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Ki Mun
authors.initials: KM
authors.lastname: Kang
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiation Oncology, Gyeongsang National University School of Medicine and Gyeongsang National University Hospital, Jinju, Republic of Korea.|Institute of Health Sciences, Gyeongsang National University, Jinju, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Bae Kwon
authors.initials: BK
authors.lastname: Jeong
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiation Oncology, Gyeongsang National University School of Medicine and Gyeongsang National University Hospital, Jinju, Republic of Korea.|Institute of Health Sciences, Gyeongsang National University, Jinju, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Hoon Sik
authors.initials: HS
authors.lastname: Choi
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiation Oncology, Gyeongsang National University School of Medicine and Gyeongsang National University Hospital, Jinju, Republic of Korea.|Institute of Health Sciences, Gyeongsang National University, Jinju, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Jin Ho
authors.initials: JH
authors.lastname: Song
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiation Oncology, Samsung Changwon Hospital, Sungkyunkwan University School of Medicine, Changwon, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Byung-Do
authors.initials: BD
authors.lastname: Park
authors.affiliation: Proton Therapy Center, National Cancer Center, Goyang, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Young Kyung
authors.initials: YK
authors.lastname: Lim
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiation Oncology, Gyeongsang National University School of Medicine and Gyeongsang National University Hospital, Jinju, Republic of Korea.|Institute of Health Sciences, Gyeongsang National University, Jinju, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Hojin
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Jeong
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D001932:Brain Neoplasms / Q000532:radiotherapy*; D006801:Humans; D009010:Monte Carlo Method; D019047:Phantoms, Imaging; D016634:Radiosurgery / Q000379:methods*; D011879:Radiotherapy Dosage; D011880:Radiotherapy Planning, Computer-Assisted / Q000379:methods*; D012189:Retrospective Studies
keywords: Monte Carlo; radiosurgery; radiotherapy; ray tracing; tissue heterogeneity