Comparison of Snyder Head Phantom Models Used for Neutron Capture Therapy Benchmark Monte Carlo Dosimetry Calculations

Abstract

As Boron Neutron Capture Therapy (BNCT) clinical trials are initiated in more countries, new treatment planning software programs are being developed to calculate dose distributions in patient specific models. A reference suite of test problems, i.e., head phantom irradiations and resulting depth-dose curves, would allow quantitative comparison of the treatment planning software. This paper presents sets of central axis depth vs. dose curves calculated with the Monte Carlo radiation transport code MCNP4B for five different representations of the Snyder head phantom. The first is a multi-shell analytic ellipsoidal representation, and the remaining four are voxelized representations with cube edge lengths of 16, 10, 8 and 4 mm. For these calculations, 10 cm diameter monoenergetic and monodirectional neutron and photon beams were incident along the central axes of the models. Individual beams of 0.0253 eV, 1, 2, 10, 100 and 1000 keV neutrons, and 0.2, 0.5, 1, 2, 5, and 10 MeV photons were simulated to high statistical convergence, with statistical error less than 1% in the center of the model. A “generic” epithermal neutron beam, with 1% fast flux contamination and 10% thermal flux contamination, similar to those proposed for BNCT treatments, was also simulated with all five models. Computations for both of the smaller sized voxel models produced thermal neutron, fast neutron, and gamma dose rates within 4% of those from the analytical representation. It is proposed that these data sets be used by the BNCT community for the verification of existing and new BNCT treatment planning software.