Accurate characterization of Monte Carlo calculated electron beams for radiotherapy

Monte Carlo studies of dose distributions in patients treated with radiotherapy electron beams would benefit from generalized models of clinical beams if such models introduce little error into the dose calculations. Methodology is presented for the design of beam models, including their evaluation in terms of how well they preserve the character of the clinical beam, and the effect of the beam models on the accuracy of dose distributions calculated with Monte Carlo. This methodology has been used to design beam models for electron beams from two linear accelerators, with either a scanned beam or a scattered beam. Monte Carlo simulations of the accelerator heads are done in which a record is kept of the particle phase-space, including the charge, energy, direction, and position of every particle that emerges from the treatment head, along with a tag regarding the details of the particle history. The character of the simulated beams are studied in detail and used to design various beam models from a simple point source to a sophisticated multiple-source model which treats particles from different parts of a linear accelerator as from different sub-sources. Dose distributions calculated using both the phase-space data and the multiple-source model agree within 2%, demonstrating that the model is adequate for the purpose of Monte Carlo treatment planning for the beams studied. Benefits of the beam models over phase-space data for dose calculation are shown to include shorter computation time in the treatment head simulation and a smaller disk space requirement, both of which impact on the clinical utility of Monte Carlo treatment planning. (C) 1997 American Association of Physicists in Medicine.