Purpose NRG Oncology/RTOG 1203 was designed to compare patient-reported acute toxicity and health-related quality of life during treatment with standard pelvic radiation or intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) in women with cervical and endometrial cancer. Methods Patients were randomly assigned to standard four-field radiation therapy (RT) or IMRT radiation treatment. The primary end point was change in patient-reported acute GI toxicity from baseline to the end of RT, measured with the bowel domain of the Expanded Prostate Cancer Index Composite (EPIC). Secondary end points included change in patient-reported urinary toxicity, change in GI toxicity measured with the Patient-Reported Outcome Common Terminology Criteria for Adverse Events, and quality of life measured with the Trial Outcome Index. Results From 2012 to 2015, 289 patients were enrolled, of whom 278 were eligible. Between baseline and end of RT, the mean EPIC bowel score declined 23.6 points in the standard RT group and 18.6 points in the IMRT group ( P = .048), the mean EPIC urinary score declined 10.4 points in the standard RT group and 5.6 points in the IMRT group ( P = .03), and the mean Trial Outcome Index score declined 12.8 points in the standard RT group and 8.8 points in the IMRT group ( P = .06). At the end of RT, 51.9% of women who received standard RT and 33.7% who received IMRT reported frequent or almost constant diarrhea ( P = .01), and more patients who received standard RT were taking antidiarrheal medications four or more times daily (20.4% v 7.8%; P = .04). Conclusion Pelvic IMRT was associated with significantly less GI and urinary toxicity than standard RT from the patient's perspective.
Radiotherapy calculations often involve complex geometries such as interfaces between materials of vastly differing atomic number, such as lung, bone and/or air interfaces. Monte Carlo methods have been used to calculate accurately the perturbation effects of the interfaces. However, these methods can be computationally expensive for routine clinical calculations. An alternative approach is to solve the Boltzmann equation deterministically. We present one such deterministic code, Attila. Further, we computed a brachytherapy example and an external beam benchmark to compare the results with data previously calculated by MCNPX and EGS4. Our data suggest that the presented deterministic code is as accurate as EGS4 and MCNPX for the transport geometries examined in this study.
Purpose-To investigate the potential of a novel deterministic solver, Attila, for external photon beam radiotherapy dose calculations.Methods and Materials-Two hypothetical cases for prostate and head and neck cancer photon beam treatment plans were calculated using Attila and EGSnrc Monte Carlo simulations. Open beams were modeled as isotropic photon point sources collimated to specified field sizes (100 cm SSD). The sources had a realistic energy spectrum calculated by Monte Carlo for a Varian Clinac 2100 operated in a 6MV photon mode. The Attila computational grids consisted of 106,000 elements, or 424,000 spatial degrees of freedom, for the prostate case, and 123,000 tetrahedral elements, or 492,000 spatial degrees of freedom, for the head and neck cases. Publisher's Disclaimer: This is a PDF file of an unedited manuscript that has been accepted for publication. As a service to our customers we are providing this early version of the manuscript. The manuscript will undergo copyediting, typesetting, and review of the resulting proof before it is published in its final citable form. Please note that during the production process errors may be discovered which could affect the content, and all legal disclaimers that apply to the journal pertain. Conclusions-The methods in Attila have the potential to be the basis for an efficient dose engine for patient specific treatment planning, providing accuracy similar to that obtained by Monte Carlo.
NIH Public Access
The goal of this work was to calculate the dose distribution around a high dose-rate 192Ir brachytherapy source using a multi-group discrete ordinates code and then to compare the results with a Monte Carlo calculated dose distribution. The unstructured tetrahedral mesh discrete ordinates code Attila version 6.1.1 was used to calculate the photon kerma rate distribution in water around the Nucletron microSelectron mHDRv2 source. MCNPX 2.5.c was used to compute the Monte Carlo water photon kerma rate distribution. Two hundred million histories were simulated, resulting in standard errors of the mean of less than 3% overall. The number of energy groups, S(n) (angular order), P(n) (scattering order), and mesh elements were varied in addition to the method of analytic ray tracing to assess their effects on the deterministic solution. Water photon kerma rate matrices were exported from both codes into an in-house data analysis software. This software quantified the percent dose difference distribution, the number of points within +/- 3% and +/- 5%, and the mean percent difference between the two codes. The data demonstrated that a 5 energy-group cross-section set calculated results to within 0.5% of a 15 group cross-section set. S12 was sufficient to resolve the solution in angle. P2 expansion of the scattering cross-section was necessary to compute accurate distributions. A computational mesh with 55 064 tetrahedral elements in a 30 cm diameter phantom resolved the solution spatially. An efficiency factor of 110 with the above parameters was realized in comparison to MC methods. The Attila code provided an accurate and efficient solution of the Boltzmann transport equation for the mHDRv2 source.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.