Improvements in pencil beam scanning proton therapy dose calculation accuracy in brain tumor cases with a commercial Monte Carlo algorithm.

Conclusions: our results suggest that in PBS proton therapy range shifter (RS) need to be used with extreme caution when planning the treatment with an analytical algorithm due to potentially great discrepancies between the planned dose and the dose delivered to the patients, also in case of brain tumours where this issue could be underestimated. Our results also suggest that a MC evaluation of the dose has to be performed every time the RS is used and, mostly, when it is used with large air gaps and beam directions tangential to the patient surface.
 &#13. PMID: 29726402 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]
Source: Physics in Medicine and Biology - Category: Physics Authors: Tags: Phys Med Biol Source Type: research