A Monte Carlo tool for raster-scanning particle therapy dose computation

Purpose of this work was to implement Monte Carlo (MC) dose computation in realistic patient geometries with raster-scanning, the most advanced ion beam delivery technique, combining magnetic beam deflection with energy variation. FLUKA, a Monte Carlo package well-established in particle therapy applications, was extended to simulate raster-scanning delivery with clinical data, unavailable as built-in feature. A new complex beam source, compatible with FLUKA public programming interface, was implemented in Fortran to model the specific properties of raster-scanning, i.e. delivery by means of multiple spot sources with variable spatial distributions, energies and numbers of particles. The source was plugged into the MC engine through the user hook system provided by FLUKA. Additionally, routines were provided to populate the beam source with treatment plan data, stored as DICOM RTPlan or TRiP98's RST format, enabling MC recomputation of clinical plans. Finally, facilities were integrated to read computerised tomography (CT) data into FLUKA. The tool was used to recompute two representative carbon ion treatment plans, a skull base and a prostate case, prepared with analytical dose calculation (TRiP98). Selected, clinically relevant issues influencing the dose distributions were investigated: (1) presence of positioning errors, (2) influence of fiducial markers and (3) variations in pencil beam width. Notable differences in modelling of these challenging situations were observed between the analytical and Monte Carlo results. In conclusion, a tool was developed, to support particle therapy research and treatment, when high precision MC calculations are required, e.g. in presence of severe density heterogeneities or in quality assurance procedures.