ADVANTAGES OF MCNPX-BASED LATTICE TALLY OVER MESH TALLY IN HIGH-SPEED MONTE CARLO DOSE RECONSTRUCTION FOR PROTON...

Area of Science:

• Medical Physics
• Computational Biology
• Radiotherapy Research

Background:

• Monte Carlo simulations are vital for radiotherapy dose distribution research.
• Mesh tallies in MCNPX are commonly used but can be computationally intensive for large voxel counts.
• This necessitates exploring faster, accurate alternatives for dose reconstruction.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the feasibility of using lattice tallies as a replacement for mesh tallies in Monte Carlo dose reconstructions.
• To compare the dosimetric accuracy and computational efficiency of lattice versus mesh tallies.
• Specifically for whole-body dose reconstruction in radiotherapy.

Main Methods:

• Compared lattice and mesh tallies using MCNPX code.
• Evaluated dosimetric accuracy (dose and distance-to-agreement) and computation time.
• Used craniospinal proton irradiation as a case study.

Main Results:

• Lattice and mesh tallies yielded highly similar dosimetric results (within 1% dose, 1 mm DTA for 99% of voxels).
• Lattice tallies demonstrated a 4 to 17 times increase in simulation speed compared to mesh tallies.
• Speed improvement varied with proton histories and voxel numbers.

Conclusions:

• Lattice tallies are a viable and accurate substitute for mesh tallies in Monte Carlo dose reconstruction.
• The significant speed enhancement makes lattice tallies suitable for clinical treatment planning.
• This facilitates more efficient radiotherapy research and potentially clinical applications.