An assessment on the use of RadCalc to verify Raystation Electron Monte Carlo plans

Hu, Yunfei; Archibald-Heeren, Ben; Byrne, Mikel; Wang, Yang

doi:10.1007/s13246-016-0470-x

Cited by 5 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 16 publications

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“…The dose calculation method utilized in MUCheck is comparable to other similar secondary check software, and is much simpler than that of Eclipse TPS and MC algorithms. 7,11 Dose is calculated to a single point within the phantom by first tracing a ray to the x-ray source. Voxel density and any interfaces between tissue types are only accounted for along the ray; any adjacent inhomo-…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Secondary monitor unit calculations for VMAT using parallelized Monte Carlo simulations

Bhagroo

French

Mathews

et al. 2019

J Applied Clin Med Phys

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We have developed a fast and accurate in‐house Monte Carlo (MC) secondary monitor unit (MU) check method, based on the EGSnrc system, for independent verification of volumetric modulated arc therapy (VMAT) treatment planning system dose calculations, in accordance with TG‐114 recommendations. For a VMAT treatment plan created for a Varian Trilogy linac, DICOM information was exported from Eclipse. An open‐source platform was used to generate input files for dose calculations using the EGSnrc framework. The full VMAT plan simulation employed 107 histories, and was parallelized to run on a computer cluster. The resulting 3ddose matrices were converted to the DICOM format using CERR and imported into Eclipse. The method was evaluated using 35 clinical VMAT plans of various treatment sites. For each plan, the doses calculated with the MC approach at four three‐dimensional reference points were compared to the corresponding Eclipse calculations, as well as calculations performed using the clinical software package, MUCheck. Each MC arc simulation of 107 particles required 13–25 min of total time, including processing and calculation. The average discrepancies in calculated dose values between the MC method and Eclipse were 2.03% (compared to 3.43% for MUCheck) for prostate cases, 2.45% (3.22% for MUCheck) for head and neck cases, 1.7% (5.51% for MUCheck) for brain cases, and 2.84% (5.64% for MUCheck) for miscellaneous cases. Of 276 comparisons, 201 showed greater agreement between the treatment planning system and MC vs MUCheck. The largest discrepancies between MC and MUCheck were found in regions of high dose gradients and heterogeneous densities. By parallelizing the calculations, point‐dose accuracies of 2‐7%, sufficient for clinical secondary checks, can be achieved in a reasonable amount of time. As computer clusters and/or cloud computing become more widespread, this method will be useful in most clinical setups.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Secondary monitor unit calculations for VMAT using parallelized Monte Carlo simulations

Bhagroo

French

Mathews

et al. 2019

J Applied Clin Med Phys

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“…The performance of earlier versions of the secondary dose calculation program RadCalc has been investigated for various types of treatment machines 18–20 . RadCalc now offers dose calculation on the patient geometry using a Monte Carlo algorithm, which, to the best of our knowledge, has not yet been thoroughly investigated.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The performance of earlier versions of the secondary dose calculation program RadCalc has been investigated for various types of treatment machines. [18][19][20] RadCalc now offers dose calculation on the patient geometry using a Monte Carlo algorithm, which, to the best of our knowledge, has not yet been thoroughly investigated. In this work, ROC analysis was applied to RadCalc's secondary dose calculation QA for clinical head and neck treatment plans and modifications of said plans with purposely introduced errors.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sensitivity and specificity of secondary dose calculation for head and neck treatment plans

Wegener,

Abu Rashed,

Sauer

et al. 2023

J Applied Clin Med Phys

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PurposeSecondary dose calculation (SDC) with an independent algorithm is one option to perform plan‐specific quality assurance (QA). While measurement‐based QA can potentially detect errors in plan delivery, the dose values are typically only compared to calculations on homogeneous phantom geometries instead of patient CT data. We analyzed the sensitivity and specificity of an SDC software by purposely introducing different errors and determined thresholds for optimal decisions.MethodsThirty head and neck VMAT plans and 30 modifications of those plans, including errors related to density and beam modelling, were recalculated using RadCalc with a Monte Carlo algorithm. Decision thresholds were obtained by receiver operating characteristics (ROC) analysis. For comparison, measurement‐based QA using the ArcCHECK phantom was carried out and evaluated in the same way.ResultsDespite optimized decision thresholds, none of the systems was able to reliably detect all errors. ArcCHECK analysis using a 2%/2 mm criterion with a threshold of 91.1% had an area under the curve (AUC) of 0.80. Evaluating differences in recalculated and planned DVH parameter of the target structures in RadCalc with a 2% threshold an AUC of 0.86 was achieved. Out‐of‐field deviations could be attributed to weaknesses in the beam model.ConclusionsSecondary dose calculation with RadCalc is an alternative to established measurement‐based phantom QA. Different tools catch different errors; therefore, a combination of approaches should be preferred.

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Curvature correction factors for the independent verification of monitor units of electron treatment plans calculated in Eclipse

Slama,

Mahmood,

Mckernan

2024

Phys Eng Sci Med

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An assessment on the use of RadCalc to verify Raystation Electron Monte Carlo plans

Cited by 5 publications

References 16 publications

Secondary monitor unit calculations for VMAT using parallelized Monte Carlo simulations

Secondary monitor unit calculations for VMAT using parallelized Monte Carlo simulations

Sensitivity and specificity of secondary dose calculation for head and neck treatment plans

Curvature correction factors for the independent verification of monitor units of electron treatment plans calculated in Eclipse

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