A hybrid approach for rapid, accurate, and direct kilovoltage radiation dose calculations in CT voxel space
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta T2N 1N4 (Canada)
Purpose: To develop and validate a fast and accurate method that uses computed tomography (CT) voxel data to estimate absorbed radiation dose at a point of interest (POI) or series of POIs from a kilovoltage (kV) imaging procedure. Methods: The authors developed an approach that computes absorbed radiation dose at a POI by numerically evaluating the linear Boltzmann transport equation (LBTE) using a combination of deterministic and Monte Carlo (MC) techniques. This hybrid approach accounts for material heterogeneity with a level of accuracy comparable to the general MC algorithms. Also, the dose at a POI is computed within seconds using the Intel Core i7 CPU 920 2.67 GHz quad core architecture, and the calculations are performed using CT voxel data, making it flexible and feasible for clinical applications. To validate the method, the authors constructed and acquired a CT scan of a heterogeneous block phantom consisting of a succession of slab densities: Tissue (1.29 cm), bone (2.42 cm), lung (4.84 cm), bone (1.37 cm), and tissue (4.84 cm). Using the hybrid transport method, the authors computed the absorbed doses at a set of points along the central axis and x direction of the phantom for an isotropic 125 kVp photon spectral point source located along the central axis 92.7 cm above the phantom surface. The accuracy of the results was compared to those computed with MCNP, which was cross-validated with EGSnrc, and served as the benchmark for validation. Results: The error in the depth dose ranged from -1.45% to +1.39% with a mean and standard deviation of -0.12% and 0.66%, respectively. The error in the x profile ranged from -1.3% to +0.9%, with standard deviations of -0.3% and 0.5%, respectively. The number of photons required to achieve these results was 1x10{sup 6}. Conclusions: The voxel-based hybrid method evaluates the LBTE rapidly and accurately to estimate the absorbed x-ray dose at any POI or series of POIs from a kV imaging procedure.
- OSTI ID:
- 22096926
- Journal Information:
- Medical Physics, Vol. 38, Issue 3; Other Information: (c) 2011 American Association of Physicists in Medicine; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0094-2405
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Similar Records
A simplified approach to characterizing a kilovoltage source spectrum for accurate dose computation
Fast Monte Carlo simulation on a voxelized human phantom deformed to a patient
Related Subjects
60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES
ABSORBED RADIATION DOSES
ACCURACY
ALGORITHMS
BOLTZMANN EQUATION
CAT SCANNING
COMPTON EFFECT
COMPUTERIZED SIMULATION
DEPTH DOSE DISTRIBUTIONS
DOSIMETRY
GHZ RANGE 01-100
LUNGS
MONTE CARLO METHOD
PATIENTS
PHANTOMS
PHOTONS
POINT SOURCES
SKELETON
VALIDATION
X RADIATION