A Review on the Use of Grid-based Boltzmann Equation Solvers for Dose Calculation in External Photon Beam Treatment Planning

Overview

Journal Biomed Res Int

Publisher Wiley

Specialties Biomedical Engineering
Biotechnology
General Medicine

Date 2013 Sep 26

PMID 24066294

Citations 6

Authors

Monica W K Kan

Peter K N Yu

Lucullus H T Leung

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Deterministic linear Boltzmann transport equation (D-LBTE) solvers have recently been developed, and one of the latest available software codes, Acuros XB, has been implemented in a commercial treatment planning system for radiotherapy photon beam dose calculation. One of the major limitations of most commercially available model-based algorithms for photon dose calculation is the ability to account for the effect of electron transport. This induces some errors in patient dose calculations, especially near heterogeneous interfaces between low and high density media such as tissue/lung interfaces. D-LBTE solvers have a high potential of producing accurate dose distributions in and near heterogeneous media in the human body. Extensive previous investigations have proved that D-LBTE solvers were able to produce comparable dose calculation accuracy as Monte Carlo methods with a reasonable speed good enough for clinical use. The current paper reviews the dosimetric evaluations of D-LBTE solvers for external beam photon radiotherapy. This content summarizes and discusses dosimetric validations for D-LBTE solvers in both homogeneous and heterogeneous media under different circumstances and also the clinical impact on various diseases due to the conversion of dose calculation from a conventional convolution/superposition algorithm to a recently released D-LBTE solver.

Citing Articles

Retrospective assessment of HDR brachytherapy dose calculation methods in locally advanced cervical cancer patients: AcurosBV vs. AAPM TG43 formalism.

Radcliffe B, Kim Y, Raffi J, Ayala-Peacock D, Stephens S, Chino J J Appl Clin Med Phys. 2024; 26(1):e14549.

PMID: 39382834 PMC: 11712453. DOI: 10.1002/acm2.14549.

The effect of material assignment in nasal cavity on dose calculation for nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) using Acuros XB.

Cheung M, Chow V, Kan M, Chan A J Appl Clin Med Phys. 2022; 23(8):e13698.

PMID: 35699203 PMC: 9359034. DOI: 10.1002/acm2.13698.

Boosting radiotherapy dose calculation accuracy with deep learning.

Xing Y, Zhang Y, Nguyen D, Lin M, Lu W, Jiang S J Appl Clin Med Phys. 2020; 21(8):149-159.

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Benchmarking techniques for stereotactic body radiotherapy for early-stage glottic laryngeal cancer: LINAC-based non-coplanar VMAT vs. Cyberknife planning.

Zhang Y, Chiu T, Dubas J, Tian Z, Lee P, Gu X Radiat Oncol. 2019; 14(1):193.

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Implementation of a double Gaussian source model for the BEAMnrc Monte Carlo code and its influence on small fields dose distributions.

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