Virtual commissioning of a treatment planning system for proton therapy of ocular cancers

The virtual commissioning of a treatment planning system (TPS) for ocular proton beam therapy was performed using Monte Carlo (MC) simulations and a model of a double-scattering ocular treatment nozzle. The simulations produced both the input data required by the TPS and the dose distributions to validate the analytical predictions from the TPS. An MC simulation of a typical ocular melanoma treatment was compared with the TPS predictions, revealing generally good agreement in the absorbed dose distribution. However, in the depth-dose profiles, differences >5% existed in the proximal region of all validation cases considered. Comparison of the radiation coverage at or above the 90% dose level, showed that MC calculated coverage was 82% and 68% of the coverage calculated by the TPS in two planes intersecting the tumour.