Comparison of out-of-field normal tissue dose estimates for pencil beam scanning proton therapy: MCNP6, PHITS, and TOPAS.

ABSTRACT: Monte Carlo (MC) methods are considered the gold-standard approach to dose estimation for normal tissues outside the treatment field (out-of-field) in proton therapy. However, the physics of secondary particle production from high-energy protons are uncertain, particularly for secondary neutrons, due to challenges in performing accurate measurements. Instead, various physics models have been developed over the years to reenact these high-energy interactions based on theory. It should thus be acknowledged that MC users must currently accept some unknown uncertainties in out-of-field dose estimates. In the present study, we compared three MC codes (MCNP6, PHITS, and TOPAS) and their available physics models to investigate the variation in out-of-field normal tissue dosimetry for pencil beam

SUBMITTER: Griffin KT 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10772933 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature