We present an algorithm for fast and accurate computation of the local dose distribution in MeV beams of protons, carbon ions or other heavy-charged particles. It uses compound Poisson-process modelling of track interaction and succesive convolutions for fast computation. It can handle mixed particle fields over a wide range of fluences. Since the local dose distribution is the essential part of several approaches to model detector efficiency or cellular response it has potential use in ion-beam dosimetry and radiotherapy.
We have developed a model for proton depth dose and lateral distributions based on Monte Carlo calculations (GEANT4) and an integration procedure of the Bethe-Bloch equation (BBE). The model accounts for the transport of primary and secondary protons, the creation of recoil protons and heavy recoil nuclei as well as lateral scattering of these contributions. The buildup, which is experimentally observed in higher energy depth dose curves, is modeled by inclusion of two different origins: 1. Secondary reaction protons with a contribution of ca. 65 % of the buildup (for monoenergetic protons). 2…
Introduction: We developed and evaluated a method for dose calibration and monitoring under conventional and ultra-high dose rates for small animal experiments with small-field proton beams using a Faraday cup. Methods: We determined a relationship between dose and optical density (OD) of EBT-XD Gafchromic film using scanned 10x10 cm2 proton pencil beams delivered at clinical dose rates; the dose was measured with an Advanced Markus chamber. On a small animal proton irradiation platform, double-scattered pencil beams with 5 or 8 mm diameter brass collimation at conventional and ultra-high dose…
We have developed a model for proton depth dose and lateral distributions based on Monte Carlo calculations (GEANT4) and an integration procedure of the Bethe-Bloch equation (BBE). The model accounts for the transport of primary and secondary protons, the creation of recoil protons and heavy recoil nuclei as well as lateral scattering of these contributions. The buildup, which is experimentally observed in higher energy depth dose curves, is modeled by inclusion of two different origins: 1. Secondary reaction protons with a contribution of ca. 65 % of the buildup (for monoenergetic protons). 2…
A proton pencil beam is associated with a surrounding low-dose envelope, originating from nuclear interactions. It is important for treatment planning systems to accurately model this envelope when performing dose calculations for pencil beam scanning treatments, and Monte Carlo (MC) codes are commonly used for this purpose. This work aims to validate the nuclear models employed by the Geant4 MC code, by comparing the simulated absolute dose distribution to a recent experiment of a 177 MeV proton pencil beam stopping in water. Striking agreement is observed over five orders of magnitude, with …
Accurate dose calculation is vitally important for proton therapy. Pencil beam (PB) model-based dose calculation is fast but inaccurate due to the approximation when dealing with inhomogeneities. Monte Carlo (MC) dose calculation is the most accurate method, but it is time consuming. We hypothesize that deep learning methods can boost the accuracy of PB dose calculation to the level of MC. In this work, we developed a deep learning model that converts PB to MC doses for different tumor sites. The proposed model is based on our newly developed hierarchically densely connected U-Net (HD U-Net) n…
Purpose: Variations in proton Relative Biological Effectiveness (RBE) with Linear Energy Transfer (LET) remain one of the largest sources of uncertainty in proton radiotherapy. This work seeks to identify physics-based metrics which can be applied to reduce this biological uncertainty. Materials and Methods: Three different physical metrics - dose, dose $\times$ LET and a complexity-weighted dose (CWD, Dose $\times$ (1+$κLET_D$) ) were compared with in vitro experimental studies of proton RBE and clinical treatment plans analysed using RBE models. The biological effects of protons in each syst…
For the in vivo range verification in proton therapy, it has been tried to measure the spatial distribution of the prompt gammas generated by the proton-induced interactions with the close relationship with the proton dose distribution. However, the high energy of the prompt gammas and background gammas are still problematic in measuring the distribution. In this study, we suggested a new method determining the in vivo range by utilizing the time structure of the prompt gammas formed with the rotation of a range modulation wheel (RMW) in the passive scattering proton therapy. To validate the M…
Radiotherapy of pregnant cancer patients is not common, but when applied accurate assessment of the fetus dose is required, especially since the treatment planning systems are not able and do not allow accurate assessment of out-of-field doses. Proton therapy significantly reduces out-of-field doses, such as dose to the fetus, when compared to the photon radiotherapy techniques and as such could be promising for pregnant cancer patients. Within this study Monte Carlo calculations are performed on the three different computational phantoms representing pregnant women, all in second trimester of…
Purpose: To investigate experimentally, if FLASH irradiation depletes oxygen within water for different radiation types such as photons, protons and carbon ions. Methods: This study presents measurements of the oxygen consumption in sealed, 3D printed water phantoms during irradiation with X-rays, protons and carbon ions at varying dose rates up to 340 Gy/s. The oxygen measurement was performed using an optical sensor allowing for non-invasive measurements. Results: Oxygen consumption in water only depends on dose, dose rate and linear energy transfer (LET) of the irradiation. The total amount…
Two full rotating gantry with different nozzles (Multipurpose nozzle with MLC, Scanning Dedicated nozzle) with conventional cyclotron system is installed and under commissioning for various proton treatment options at Samsung Medical Center in Korea. The purpose of this study is to investigate neutron dose equivalent per therapeutic dose, H/D, to x-ray imaging equipment under various treatment conditions with monte carlo simulation. At first, we investigated H/D with the various modifications of the beam line devices (Scattering, Scanning, Multi-leaf collimator, Aperture, Compensator) at isoce…
Purpose: The presence of respiratory motion during radiation treatment leads to degradation of the expected dose distribution, both for target coverage and healthy-tissue sparing, particularly for techniques like pencil-beam scanning proton therapy which have dynamic delivery systems. While tools exist to estimate this degraded four-dimensional (4D) dose, they typically have one or more deficiencies such as ... Methods: To quickly compute the 4D-dose, the three main tasks of the calculator were run on graphics processing units (GPUs). These tasks were: simulating the delivery of the plan using…
An Integrated Biological Optimization framework for proton SBRT FLASH treatment planning allows dose, dose rate, and LET optimization using patient-specific ridge filters
Beam modelling of Hitachi PROBEAT proton therapy system for a GPU-based Fast Monte Carlo dose engine
University of Nebraska Omaha（内布拉斯加大学奥马哈分校）；Rice University（莱斯大学）；The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer（德克萨斯大学安德森癌症中心）；Mevion Medical System（美维医疗系统）；Emory University（埃默里大学）
In this study, two proton beam delivery designs, passive scattering proton therapy (PSPT) and pencil beam scanning (PBS), were quantitatively compared in terms of dosimetric indices. The GATE Monte Carlo code was used to simulate the proton beam system; and the developed simulation engines were benchmarked with respect to the experimental measurements. A water phantom was used to simulate system energy parameters using a set of depth-dose data in the energy range of 120-235 MeV. To compare the performance of PSPT against PBS, multiple dosimetric parameters including FWHM, peak position, range,…
Secondary radiation in a radiation therapy environment is considered a cause for post-treatment side effects including secondary carcinogenesis. In a proton-therapy setup, neutrons deliver a considerable extra dose to the patient. Various measurements and calculations of neutron dose suggest a wide range of values for this quantity. This paper provides a comparison between the previously published values and analyzes the Monte Carlo calculated neutron dose from the present work using the neutron cross-section data. The purpose is to provide a range for the convergence of several neutron-absorb…
Purpose: The purpose of this work was to provide a flexible platform for FLASH research with protons by adapting a former clinical pencil beam scanning gantry to irradiations with ultrahigh dose rates. Methods: PSI Gantry 1 treated patients until December 2018. We optimized the beamline parameters to transport the 250 MeV beam extracted from the PSI COMET accelerator to the treatment room, maximizing the transmission of beam intensity to the sample. We characterized a dose monitor on the gantry to ensure good control of the dose, delivered in spot-scanning mode. We characterized the beam for d…
Next generation online and real-time adaptive radiotherapy workflows require precise particle transport simulations in sub-second times, which is unfeasible with current analytical pencil beam algorithms (PBA) or stochastic Monte Carlo (MC) methods. We present a data-driven millisecond speed dose calculation algorithm (DoTA) accurately predicting the dose deposited by mono-energetic proton pencil beams for arbitrary energies and patient geometries. Given the forward-scattering nature of protons, we frame 3D particle transport as modeling a sequence of 2D geometries in the beam's eye view. DoTA…
An essential component in proton radiotherapy is the algorithm to calculate the radiation dose to be delivered to the patient. The most common dose algorithms are fast but they are approximate analytical approaches. However their level of accuracy is not always satisfactory, especially for heterogeneous anatomic areas, like the thorax. Monte Carlo techniques provide superior accuracy, however, they often require large computation resources, which render them impractical for routine clinical use. Track-repeating algorithms, for example the Fast Dose Calculator, have shown promise for achieving …
Cao et al (2018) published an article on inverse planning based on dose-averaged linear energy transfer (LET). Their claim that the problem can be cast as a linear optimization model relies on an incorrect application of the Charnes-Cooper transformation. In this comment we show that their linear model is simlar to one where dose-averaged LET is multiplied with dose, explaining why their model was nonetheless able to improve the LET distribution.
Therapeutic protons acting on O18-substituted thymidine increase cytotoxicity in radio-resistant human cancer cells. We consider here the physics behind the irradiation during proton beam therapy and diagnosis using O18-enriched thymine in DNA, with attention to the effect of the presence of thymine-18 on cancer cell death.
This work addresses computing techniques for dose calculations in treatment planning with proton and ion beams, based on an efficient kernel-convolution method referred to as grid-dose spreading (GDS) and accurate heterogeneity-correction method referred to as Gaussian beam splitting. The original GDS algorithm suffered from distortion of dose distribution for beams tilted with respect to the dose-grid axes. Use of intermediate grids normal to the beam field has solved the beam-tilting distortion. Interplay of arrangement between beams and grids was found as another intrinsic source of artifac…
Proton beam therapy has been developed to irradiate the tumor with higher precision and dose conformity compared to conventional X-ray irradiation. The dose conformity of this treatment modality may be further improved if narrower proton beams are used. Still, this is limited by multiple Coulomb scattering of protons through tissue. The primary aim of this work was to develop techniques to produce narrow proton beams and investigate the resulting dose profiles. We introduced and assessed three different proton beam shaping techniques: 1) metal collimators (100/150~MeV), 2) focusing of conventi…
Purpose: To demonstrate the feasibility of fast Monte Carlo (MC) based inverse biological planning for the treatment of head and neck tumors in spot-scanning proton therapy. Methods: Recently, a fast and accurate Graphics Processor Unit (GPU)-based MC simulation of proton transport was developed and used as the dose calculation engine in a GPU-accelerated IMPT optimizer. Besides dose, the dose-averaged linear energy transfer (LETd) can be simultaneously scored, which makes biological dose (BD) optimization possible. To convert from LETd to BD, a linear relation was assumed. Using this novel op…
We compute, from first principles, the absolute dose or fluence distribution per incident proton charge in a known heterogeneous terrain exposed to known proton beams. The algorithm is equally amenable to scattered or scanned beams. All objects in the terrain (including collimators) are sliced into slabs, of any convenient thickness, perpendicular to the nominal beam direction. Transport is by standard Fermi-Eyges theory. Transverse heterogeneities are handled by breaking up pencil beams (PBs) either by conventional redefinition or a new form of 2D recursive dynamic splitting: the mother PB is…
Given the sensitivity of proton therapy to anatomical variations, this cancer treatment modality is expected to benefit greatly from integration with magnetic resonance (MR) imaging. One of the obstacles hindering such an integration are strong magnetic field induced dose distortions. These have been predicted in simulation studies, but no experimental validation has been performed so far. Here we show the first measurement of planar distributions of dose deposited by therapeutic proton pencil beams traversing a one-Tesla transversal magnetic field while depositing energy in a tissue-like phan…
We study the propagation of nucleons and nuclei in tissue-like media within a Monte Carlo Model for Heavy-ion Therapy (MCHIT) based on the GEANT4 toolkit (version 8.2). The model takes into account fragmentation of projectile nuclei and secondary interactions of produced nuclear fragments. Model predictions are validated with available experimental data obtained for water and PMMA phantoms irradiated by monoenergetic carbon-ion beams. The MCHIT model describes well (1) the depth-dose distributions in water and PMMA, (2) the doses measured for fragments of certain charge, (3) the distributions …
A direct comparison measurement of fluorescent nuclear track detectors (FNTDs) and a thimble ionisation chamber is presented. Irradiations were performed using monoenergetic protons (142.66 MeV, 3*10^6 1/cm2) and carbon ions (270.55 MeV/u, 3*10^6 1/cm2). It was found that absorbed dose to water values as determined by fluence measurements using FNTDs are, in case of protons, in good agreement (2.4 %) with ionization chamber measurements, if slower protons and Helium secondaries were accounted for by an effective stopping power. For carbon, however, a significant discrepancy of 4.5 % was seen, …
A novel dose calculation approach was designed based on the application of LSTM network that processes the 3D patient/phantom geometry as a sequence of 2D computed tomography input slices yielding a corresponding sequence of 2D slices that forms the respective 3D dose distribution. LSTM networks can propagate information effectively in one direction, resulting in a model that can properly imitate the mechanisms of proton interaction in matter. The study is centered on predicting dose on a single pencil beam level, avoiding the averaging effects in treatment plans comprised of thousands pencil …
FLASH is a new treatment modality that requires optimization of dose, dose rate, and LET. Here we validate these three quantities under FLASH conditions, which includes the quantum uncertainty in the time-dependent instantaneous dose rate (IDR) curves and LET spectra that underlie the newly proposed integrated optimization framework. Measurements of dose, IDR, and LET were performed at the Emory Proton Therapy Center using a FLASH proton beam with a nominal energy of 250 MeV and a 3D printed ridge filter. Because 3D printing resin is made from a proprietary chemical formula, we developed a met…
Laser-accelerated protons have a great potential for innovative experiments in radiation biology due to the sub-picosecond pulse duration and high dose rate achievable. However, the broad angular divergence makes them not optimal for applications with stringent requirements on dose homogeneity and total flux at the irradiated target. The strategy otherwise adopted to increase the homogeneity is to increase the distance between the source and the irradiation plane or to spread the beam with flat scattering systems or through the transport system itself. Such methods considerably reduce the prot…
A split feasibility formulation for the inverse problem of intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) treatment planning with dose-volume constraints (DVCs) included in the planning algorithm is presented. It involves a new type of sparsity constraint that enables the inclusion of a percentage-violation constraint in the model problem and its handling by continuous (as opposed to integer) methods. We propose an iterative algorithmic framework for solving such a problem by applying the feasibility-seeking CQ-algorithm of Byrne combined with the automatic relaxation method (ARM) that uses cycl…
Sensitivity of silicon-to-water dose conversion and Bragg-peak metrics to stopping-power datasets in proton dosimetry
Instituto de Pesquisas Energéticas e Nucleares（能源与核研究研究所）；Departamento de Física, Centro de Investigación en Óptica y Nanofísica, Universidad de Murcia（穆尔西亚大学光学与纳米物理研究中心物理系）；Departament de Física, Universitat d’Alacant（阿利坎特大学物理系）；Instituto de Física da Universidade de São Paulo（圣保罗大学物理研究所）；National Physical Laboratory（英国国家物理实验室）
PyDoseRT Proton: A GPU Pencil-Beam Engine with a Convolutional Residual-Correction Network for Fast Proton Dose Calculation
Medical University of Vienna（维也纳医科大学）；Christian Doppler Laboratory for Image and Knowledge Driven Precision Radiation Oncology（克里斯蒂安·多普勒图像与知识驱动精准放射肿瘤学实验室）；Umeå University（于默奥大学）
The purpose of this study was to use various dosimetrical indices to determine the best IMRT modality technique for treating patients with prostate cancer. Ten patients with prostate cancer were included in this study. Intensity modulated radiation therapy plans were designed to include different modalities, including the linac step and shoot, Tomotherapy, RapidArc, and Proton systems. Various dosimetrical indices, like the prescription isodose to target volume (PITV) ratio, conformity index (CI), homogeneity index (HI), target coverage index (TCI), modified dose homogeneity index (MHI), confo…
Comparison of deep-learning data fusion strategies in mandibular osteoradionecrosis prediction modelling using clinical variables and radiation dose distribution volumes
