The development and verification of an independent dose calculation toolkit for proton Therapy / 中华放射肿瘤学杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective:To develop and validate the accuracy of an independent dose calculation toolkit for the horizontal beamline of Shanghai Advanced Proton Therapy (SAPT) facility based on an open-source dose calculation engine.Methods:Machine data, such as absolute integral depth doses (IDDs) and lateral profiles in air were measured and lateral profiles in water were derived by Monte-Carlo simulations. The dose computation models for SAPT horizontal beamline pencil beams in water were achieved by combining machine data and dose calculation engine. The verification of the dose reconstruction toolkit included absolute dose verification and relative dose verification. The absolute dose verification is performed to mainly compare the reconstructed value and the measured value at different depths along the center axis of the beam direction of a cube plan. The relative dose verification is conducted to mainly compare the lateral profile or two-dimensional dose distribution between the measured value and the reconstructed value. Meanwhile, the precision of double-gaussian and single-gaussian lateral beam models was compared.Results:The deviations of the absolute dose between the calculated and measured values were basically within 2%. The deviations of 20%-80% penumbra between the measured and the calculated values were within 1 mm, and deviations of the full width at half height were within 2 mm. For 3 cube plans and 2 clinical cases, the two-dimensional gamma pass rates (3 mm/3%) between the measured and calculated dose distributions at the corresponding depths were greater than 95%. The double-gaussian lateral beam model was more accurate in the high dose gradient region and deeper depth.Conclusion:The precision of independent dose calculation toolkit is acceptable for clinical requirements, which can be employed to investigate other dose-related issues.