Fast Monte Carlo for radiation therapy: the PEREGRINE Project
The purpose of the PEREGRINE program is to bring high-speed, high- accuracy, high-resolution Monte Carlo dose calculations to the desktop in the radiation therapy clinic. PEREGRINE is a three- dimensional Monte Carlo dose calculation system designed specifically for radiation therapy planning. It provides dose distributions from external beams of photons, electrons, neutrons, and protons as well as from brachytherapy sources. Each external radiation source particle passes through collimator jaws and beam modifiers such as blocks, compensators, and wedges that are used to customize the treatment to maximize the dose to the tumor. Absorbed dose is tallied in the patient or phantom as Monte Carlo simulation particles are followed through a Cartesian transport mesh that has been manually specified or determined from a CT scan of the patient. This paper describes PEREGRINE capabilities, results of benchmark comparisons, calculation times and performance, and the significance of Monte Carlo calculations for photon teletherapy. PEREGRINE results show excellent agreement with a comprehensive set of measurements for a wide variety of clinical photon beam geometries, on both homogeneous and heterogeneous test samples or phantoms. PEREGRINE is capable of calculating >350 million histories per hour for a standard clinical treatment plan. This results in a dose distribution with voxel standard deviations of <2% of the maximum dose on 4 million voxels with 1 mm resolution in the CT-slice plane in under 20 minutes. Calculation times include tracking particles through all patient specific beam delivery components as well as the patient. Most importantly, comparison of Monte Carlo dose calculations with currently-used algorithms reveal significantly different dose distributions for a wide variety of treatment sites, due to the complex 3-D effects of missing tissue, tissue heterogeneities, and accurate modeling of the radiation source.
- Research Organization:
- Lawrence Livermore National Lab. (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE, Washington, DC (United States)
- DOE Contract Number:
- W-7405-ENG-48
- OSTI ID:
- 572760
- Report Number(s):
- UCRL-JC-129097; CONF-980403-; ON: DE98051997; BR: YN0100000; CNN: W-7405-Eng-48
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: Radiation protection and shielding topical meeting: technologies for the new century, Nashville, TN (United States), 19-23 Apr 1998; Other Information: PBD: 11 Nov 1997
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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