Whole-body dose evaluation with an adaptive treatment planning system for boron neutron capture therapy

Dose evaluation for out-of-field organs during radiotherapy has gained interest in recent years. A team led by University of Tsukuba is currently implementing a project for advancing boron neutron capture therapy (BNCT), along with a radiation treatment planning system (RTPS). In this study, the authors used the RTPS (the 'Tsukuba-Plan') to evaluate the dose to out-of-field organs during BNCT. Computed tomography images of a whole-body phantom were imported into the RTPS, and a voxel model was constructed for the Monte Carlo calculations, which used the Particle and Heavy Ion Transport Code System. The results indicate that the thoracoabdominal organ dose during BNCT for a brain tumour and maxillary sinus tumour was 50-360 and 120-1160 mGy-Eq, respectively. These calculations required ∼29.6 h of computational time. This system can evaluate the out-of-field organ dose for BNCT irradiation during treatment planning with patient-specific irradiation conditions.