Intercomparison of radiotherapy treatment planning systems for external photon and electron beam dose calculations.

Dose distributions calculated by six different treatment planning systems (TPSs), used by the hospitals in Finland or in Russia, were compared with measured dose distributions. Five typical cases of irradiation were selected: regular fields, oblique incidence, irregular field, wedge field and inhomogeneity in a water equivalent phantom. The beam data for each TPS where those pertaining to the beam where the comparative relative measurements were performed. The results indicate that the dose distributions produced by different TPSs can differ from each other as well as from the measured dose distributions up to a level which is not acceptable in terms of the ICRU recommendations. Greatest differences seem to be related to the omission or undue consideration of the scatter components of the beam.

[1]  G K Svensson,et al.  Quality assurance in radiation therapy: physics efforts. , 1984, International journal of radiation oncology, biology, physics.

[2]  Robert J. Shalek,et al.  Determination of Absorbed Dose in a Patient Irradiated by Beams of X or Gamma Rays in Radiotherapy Procedures , 1977 .

[3]  M R Sontag,et al.  Corrections to absorbed dose calculations for tissue inhomogeneities. , 1977, Medical physics.

[4]  E C McCullough,et al.  Performance evaluation of computerized treatment planning systems for radiotherapy: external photon beams. , 1980, International journal of radiation oncology, biology, physics.

[5]  D. Brenner.  Reply to: Precision and accuracy in radiotherapy , 1989 .

[6]  H. E. Johns,et al.  Physics of Radiology , 1983 .

[7]  K. Johansson.  Studies of different methods of absorbed dose determination and a dosimetric intercomparison at the Nordic radiotherapy centres , 1982 .

[8]  H. Svensson.  Quality assurance in radiation therapy: physical aspects. , 1984, International journal of radiation oncology, biology, physics.

[9]  H J van Kleffens,et al.  Determination of the accuracy of different computer planning systems for treatment with external photon beams. , 1984, Radiotherapy and oncology : journal of the European Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology.

[10]  H J van Kleffens,et al.  Dose intercomparison at the radiotherapy centers in The Netherlands. 2. Accuracy of locally applied computer planning systems for external photon beams. , 1988, Radiotherapy and oncology : journal of the European Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology.

[11]  F. Khan,et al.  Validity of lung correction algorithms. , 1986, Medical physics.

[12]  Michael Goitein,et al.  Nonstandard deviations: Communications , 1983 .

[13]  H Järvinen,et al.  Application of a natural diamond detector for the measurement of relative dose distributions in radiotherapy. , 1993, Physics in medicine and biology.

[14]  D L McShan,et al.  Verification data for electron beam dose algorithms. , 1992, Medical physics.