Dosimetric evaluation of the clinical implementation of the first commercial IMRT Monte Carlo treatment planning system at 6 MV

In this work we dosimetrically evaluated the clinical implementation of a commercial Monte Carlo treatment planning software (PEREGRINE, North American Scientific, Cranberry Township, PA) intended for quality assurance (QA) of intensity modulated radiation therapy treatment plans. Dose profiles calculated in homogeneous and heterogeneous phantoms using this system were compared to both measurements and simulations using the EGSnrc Monte Carlo code for the 6 MV beam of a Varian CL21EX linear accelerator. For simple jaw-defined fields, calculations agree within 2% of the dose at d(max) with measurements in homogeneous phantoms with the exception of the buildup region where the calculations overestimate the dose by up to 8%. In heterogeneous lung and bone phantoms the agreement is within 3%, on average, up to 5% for a 1 x 1 cm(2) field. We tested two consecutive implementations of the MLC model. After matching the calculated and measured MLC leakage, simulations of static and dynamic MLC-defined fields using the most recent MLC model agreed to within 2% with measurements. (C) 2004 American Association of Physicists in Medicine.