BRACHYTHERAPY DOSIMETRY SYSTEM AND TREATMENT PLANNING SOFTWARE USING MONTE

CARLO
Introduction
The advantage of brachytherapy (BT) over external beam radiotherapy (EBRT) is that the source
is placed in immediate vicinity of the tumor, hence no entrance dose and rapid dose fall off the
distance. The use of the Monte Carlo (MC) method to solve problems in the field of
radiotherapy dosimetry has increased almost exponentially since the 1970s. High dose rate
brachytherapy (HDR BT) for prostate cancer is an effective therapy delivered either as a
monotherapy or as a boost in combination with external beam radiotherapy (EBRT).1, 2 The
HDR BT boost is a recommended method of dose escalation for intermediate- and high-risk
prostate cancer
In all cases the complete phase-space that characterizes the energy, position and direction of
the particles reaching a detector or a given organ within a patient, including all particle
generations, can be determined. Hence, absorbed dose and other dosimetric quantities like
fluence, kerma, etc can be calculated directly or performing subsequent analytical calculations.
Despite being considered the gold standard for brachytherapy dosimetry, Monte Carlo (MC) has
yet to be implemented into a software for brachytherapy treatment planning. The purpose of
this work is to present RapidBrachyMCTPS, a novel treatment planning system (TPS) for
brachytherapy applications equipped with a graphical user interface (GUI), optimization tools
and a Geant4-based MC dose calculation engine, RapidBrachyMC.
This paper describes important MC applications in the different areas of radiotherapy
dosimetry.
Aim

To characterize the dosimetric parameters of Spatially Fractionated Radiotherapy element

Objectives

(i) Monte Carlo simulation of the dosimetic influence of grid block of different
materials, dimensions and perforation shape and size
(ii) Fabrication, testing and evaluation of GRID block with optimized radiotherapy
dose
(iii) Synthesis and characterisation of scintillator for radiotherapy dosimetric
applications
(iv) Analysis of the dosimetric properties of the synthesized scintillator.