Modelling and commissioning validation of eclipse conical cone collimator for stereotactic radiosurgery using Monte Carlo simulation

Abstract

Purpose: The miniaturized conical cones for stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS) make it challenging in measurement of dosimetric data needed for commissioning of treatment planning system. This study aims at validating dosimetric characteristics of conical cone collimator manufactured by Varian using Monte Carlo (MC) simulation technique. Methods & Material: Percentage depth dose (PDD), tissue maximum ratio (TMR), lateral dose profile (LDP) and output factor (OF) were measured for cones with diameters of 5mm, 7·5mm, 10mm, 12·5 mm, 15 mm and 17·5 mm using EDGE detector for 6MV flattening filter-free (FFF) beam from Truebeam linac. Similarly, MC modelling of linac for 6MVFFF beam and simulation of conical cones were performed in PRIMO. Subsequently, measured beam data were validated by comparing them with results obtained from MC simulation. Results: The measured and MC-simulated PDDs or TMRs showed close agreement within 3% except for cone of 5mm diameter. Deviations between measured and simulated PDDs or TMRs were substantially higher for 5mm cone. The maximum deviations at depth of 10cm, 20cm and at range of 50% dose were found 4·05%, 7·52%, 5·52% for PDD and 4·04%, 7·03%, 5·23% for TMR with 5mm cone, respectively. The measured LDPs acquired for all the cones showed close agreement with MC LDPs except in penumbra region around 80% and 20% dose profile. Measured and MC full-width half maxima of dose profiles agreed with nominal cone size within ± 0·2 mm. Measured and MC OFs showed excellent agreement for cone sizes ≥10 mm. However, deviation consistently increases as the size of the cone gets smaller. Findings: MC model of conical cones for SRS has been presented and validated. Very good agreement was found between experimentally measured and MC-simulated data. The dosimetry dataset obtained in this study validated using MC model may be used to benchmark beam data measured for commissioning of SRS for cone planning.