Correspondence
Response to “Comment on ‘Monte Carlo evaluation of the convolution/
superposition algorithm of Hi-ArtTM tomotherapy in heterogeneous
phantoms and clinical cases’ ” †Med. Phys. 36, 3856 „2009…‡
共Received 10 June 2009; accepted for publication 10 June 2009; published 27 July 2009兲
关DOI: 10.1118/1.3160766兴
The authors, Zhao et al., claimed that their articles1,2
should have been acknowledged in our article published later
in this same journal.3 We recognize the valuable contribution
of their articles to the community. We definitely agree that
proper citation of relevant publications is an important issue
for both reviewers and authors. Unfortunately, the rush and
pressure to publish, and the overload of competent review-
ers, frequently lead to involuntary omission. Nevertheless,
authors and reviewers are also entitled to decide whether a
publication is relevant enough to be cited. We do admit that
our claim to be the “first” to publish a Monte Carlo evalua-
tion of the accuracy of the C/S algorithm of TomoTherapy,
Inc., should have been amended and we apologize for this
oversight. Although at the time of our paper’s first submis-
sion the statement was true, their work was clearly published
first. However, the work that resulted in our article was done
independently and in no way leveraged the content in their
articles. Despite this, we do agree that a citation of their
work could have been appropriate, but we would like also to
point out that we have three other papers4–6 published on the
same topic by our group, the last one published in a major
journal and including simulations in the helical mode 共April
3, 2008兲.
These were published before the final submission of their
first paper1 共April 15, 2008兲 and before the first submission
of their second paper2 共April 17, 2008兲 but were not cited in
Refs. 1 and 2. We do insist the fact that our work is com-
pletely original. We are the first to have a Monte Carlo model
based on detailed technical drawings of the Hi-Art Tomo-
3857 Med. Phys. 36 „8…, August 2009 0094-2405/2009/36„8…/3857/1/$25.00
Therapy beamline. The results of our investigation include
11 cases with a wide range of target locations. Also included
is a study in simple and interpretable cases like static fields.
To conclude, we respect the authors of the other articles.
Their articles1,2 have technical merit as ours.
a兲
Electronic mail: esterpin@yahoo.fr
1
Y. Zhao, M. Mackenzie, C. Kirkby, and B. G. Fallone, “Monte Carlo
calculation of helical tomotherapy dose delivery,” Med. Phys. 35共8兲,
3491–3500 共2008兲.
2
Y. Zhao, M. Mackenzie, C. Kirkby, and B. G. Fallone, “Monte Carlo
evaluation of a treatment planning system for helical tomotherapy in an
anfhropomorphic heterogeneous phantom and for clinical treatment
plans,” Med. Phys. 35共12兲, 5366–5374 共2008兲.
3
E. Sterpin, F. Salvat, G. Olivera, and S. Vynckier, “Monte Carlo evalua-
tion of the convolution/superposition algorithm of Hi-ArtTM tomo-
therapy in heterogeneous phantoms and clinical cases,” Med. Phys. 36共5兲,
1566–1575 共2009兲.
4
E. Sterpin, M. Tomsej, R. Cravens, F. Salvat, K. Ruchala, G. H. Olivera,
and S. Vynckier, “Monte Carlo simulation of the Tomotherapy treatment
unit in the static mode using MC HAMMER, a Monte Carlo tool dedi-
cated to Tomotherapy,” J. Phys.: Conf. Ser. 74, 021019 共2007兲.
5
E. Sterpin, F. Salvat, G. H. Olivera, and S. Vynckier, “Analytical model of
the binary multileaf collimator of Tomotherapy for Monte Carlo simula-
tions,” J. Phys.: Conf. Ser. 102, 012022 共2008兲.
6
E. Sterpin, F. Salvat, R. Cravens, K. Ruchala, G. H. Olivera, and S.
Vynckier, “Monte Carlo simulation of helical Tomotherapy with PENE-
LOPE,” Phys. Med. Biol. 53, 2161–2180 共2008兲.
E. Sterpin,a兲 F. Salvat, G. Olivera, and S. Vynckier
Department Radiology, University Hospital Saint-Luc, Université
Catholique de Louvain, Avenue Hippocrate 10-Brussels, Brussels
1200, Belgium
© 2009 Am. Assoc. Phys. Med. 3857