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SU‐E‐T‐540: MCNPX Simulation of Proton Dose Distributions in a Water Phantom
Author(s) -
Lee C,
Lee Y,
Chen S,
Chiang B,
Tung C,
Chao T
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
medical physics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.473
H-Index - 180
eISSN - 2473-4209
pISSN - 0094-2405
DOI - 10.1118/1.4924902
Subject(s) - imaging phantom , proton , fluence , bragg peak , monte carlo method , proton therapy , pencil (optics) , materials science , beam (structure) , nuclear medicine , physics , irradiation , nuclear physics , optics , mathematics , medicine , statistics
Purpose: In this study, fluence and energy deposition of proton and proton by‐products and dose distributions were simulated. Lateral dose distributions were also been discussed to understand the difference between Monte Carlo simulations and pencil beam algorithm. Methods: MCNPX codes were used to build a water phantom by using “repeated structures” technique and the doses and fluences in each cell was recorded by mesh tally. This study includes, proton equilibrium and proton disequilibrium case. For the proton equilibrium case, the doses difference between proton and proton by‐products were studied. A 160 MeV proton pencil beam was perpendicularly incident into a 40 × 40 × 50 cm 3 water phantom and the scoring volume was 20 × 20 × 0.2 cm 3 . Energy deposition and fluence were calculated from MCNPX with (1) proton only; and (2) proton and secondary particles. For the proton disequilibrium case, the dose distribution variation using different multiple Coulomb scattering were studied. A 70 MeV proton pencil beam was perpendicularly incident into a 40 × 40 × 10 cm 3 water phantom and two scoring voxel sizes of 0.1 × 0.1 × 0.05 cm 3 and 0.01 × 0.01 × 0.05 cm 3 were used for the depth dose distribution, and 0.01 × 0.01 × 0.05 cm 3 for the lateral profile distribution simulations. Results: In the water phantom, proton fluence and dose in depths beyond the Bragg peak were slightly perturbed by the choice of the simulated particle types. The dose from secondary particles was about three orders smaller, but its simulation consumed significant computing time. The depth dose distributions and lateral dose distributions of 70 MeV proton pencil beam obtained from MCNPX, GEANT4, and the pencil beam algorithm showed the significant deviations, probably caused by multiple Coulomb scattering. Conclusion: Multiple Coulomb scattering is critical when there is in proton disequilibrium.