In external electron beam therapy arbitrarily shaped inserts (cutouts) are used to define the contours of the irradiated field. This thesis describes the implementation and verification of a software system to calculate output factors for cutouts using Monte Carlo simulations. The design goals were: (1) A stand-alone software system running on a single workstation. (2) Task oriented graphical user interface with shape input capability. (3) Implementation on Mac OS XRTM (10A.x Tiger). (4) CPU multicore support by job splitting. (5) EGSnrc (Patch level V4-r2-2-5) for particle transport and dose scoring. (6) Validation for clinical use. / The system, called Cutout Manager, can calculate output factors with 1% statistical error in 20 minutes on Mac Pro computer (Intel XeonRTM, 4 cores). When the BEAMnrc linac model correctly reproduces percentage depth doses in the buildup region and around R100, calculated and measured output factors are in good agreement with precision measurements of circular cutouts at 100 cm source-to-surface distance (SSD) and extended SSD. Cutout Manager simulations are consistent with measurements of clinical cutouts within a 2% error margin.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.116119 |
| Date | January 2008 |
| Creators | Last, Jürgen. |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Master of Science (Department of Medical Radiation Physics.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 003163999, proquestno: AAIMR67064, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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