Recently, there has been interest to integrate VMC++ into the commercial treatment planning system at VCU as another Monte Carlo code option, since it has been shown to increase efficiency dramatically without introducing a significant amount of systematic error. Also, independent validation of VMC++ for photon beams is of interest since this has not been performed previously in literature. This study included several tests required to integrate VMC++. Output factor normalization was performed and found to agree with experiment to within 1% for all field sizes except 1x1 cm2. Geometric validation was successful. Dosimetric validation was performed with respect to DOSXYZnrc on a water phantom, resulting in agreement within statistical uncertainty except for slight differences at the surface of the phantom. Dosimetric comparison was made for a head-and-neck patient case, showing that 5% of the voxels did not agree within 2.8% of maximum dose. The ability of VMC++ to compute dose-to-water was compared to an in-house algorithm and found to agree within statistical uncertainty.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:vcu.edu/oai:scholarscompass.vcu.edu:etd-1989 |
| Date | 01 January 2005 |
| Creators | Gardner, Joseph Kingsley |
| Publisher | VCU Scholars Compass |
| Source Sets | Virginia Commonwealth University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | Theses and Dissertations |
| Rights | © The Author |
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