Program Information
Site-Specific Comparison of Analytical and Monte Carlo Based Dose Calculations
J Schuemann1*, S Dowdell2 , C Grassberger1 , H Paganetti1 , (1) Massachusetts General Hospital & Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, (2) Illawarra Shoalhaven Local Health District, Wollongong, Australia
Presentations
TH-A-19A-6 Thursday 7:30AM - 9:30AM Room: 19APurpose:
To investigate the impact of complex patient geometries on the capability of analytical dose calculation algorithms to accurately predict dose distributions and to verify currently used uncertainty margins in proton therapy.
Methods:
Dose distributions predicted by an analytical pencil-beam algorithm were compared with Monte Carlo simulations (MCS) using TOPAS. 79 complete patient treatment plans were investigated for 7 disease sites (liver, prostate, breast, medulloblastoma spine and whole brain, lung and head & neck). A total of 508 individual passively scattered treatment fields were analyzed for field specific properties. Comparisons based on target coverage indices (EUD, D95, D90 and D50) were performed. Range differences were estimated for the distal position of the 90% dose level (R90) and the 50% dose level (R50). Two-dimensional distal dose surfaces were calculated and the root mean square differences (RMSD), average range difference (ARD) and average distal dose degradation (ADD), the distance between the distal position of the 80% and 20% dose levels (R80-R20), were analyzed.
Results:
We found target coverage indices calculated by TOPAS to generally be around 1-2% lower than predicted by the analytical algorithm. Differences in R90 predicted by TOPAS and the planning system can be larger than currently applied range margins in proton therapy for small regions distal to the target volume. We estimate new site-specific range margins (R90) for analytical dose calculations considering total range uncertainties and uncertainties from dose calculation alone based on the RMSD. Our results demonstrate that a reduction of currently used uncertainty margins is feasible for liver, prostate and whole brain fields even without introducing MC dose calculations.
Conclusion:
Analytical dose calculation algorithms predict dose distributions within clinical limits for more homogeneous patients sites (liver, prostate, whole brain). However, we recommend treatment plan verification using Monte Carlo simulations for patients with complex geometries.
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