Application of the new MultiTrans SP3 radiation transport code in BNCT dose planning

Dose planning in boron neutron capture therapy (BNCT) is a complex problem and requires sophisticated numerical methods. In the framework of the Finnish BNCT project, new deterministic three-dimensional radiation transport code MultiTrans SP3 has been developed at VTT Chemical Technology, based on a novel application of the tree multigrid technique. To test the applicability of this new code in a realistic BNCT dose planning problem, cylindrical PMMA (polymethyl-methacrylate) phantom was chosen as a benchmark case. It is a convenient benchmark, as it has been modeled by several different codes, including well-known DORT and MCNP. Extensive measured data also exist. In this paper, a comparison of the new MultiTrans SP3 code with other methods is presented for the PMMA phantom case. Results show that the total neutron dose rate to ICRU adult brain calculated by the MultiTrans SP3 code differs less than 4% in 2 cm depth in phantom (in thermal maximum) from the DORT calculation. Results also show that the calculated 197Au(n,gamma) and 55Mn(n,gamma) reaction rates in 2 cm depth in phantom differ less than 4% and 1% from the measured values, respectively. However, the photon dose calculated by the MultiTrans SP3 code seems to be incorrect in this PMMA phantom case, which requires further studying. As expected, the deterministic MultiTrans SP3 code is over an order of magnitude faster than stochastic Monte Carlo codes (with similar resolution), thus providing a very efficient tool for BNCT dose planning.