GPU-accelerated Monte Carlo simulation of electron and photon interactions for radiotherapy applications

Abstract

Objective. The Monte Carlo simulation software is a valuable tool in radiation therapy, in particular to achieve the needed accuracy in the dose evaluation for the treatment plans optimisation. The current challenge in this field is the time reduction to open the way to many clinical applications for which the computational time is an issue. In this manuscript we present an innovative GPU-accelerated Monte Carlo software for dose valuation in electron and photon based radiotherapy, developed as an update of the FRED (Fast paRticle thErapy Dose evaluator) software. Approach. The code transports particles through a 3D voxel grid, while scoring their energy deposition along their trajectory. The models of electromagnetic interactions in the energy region between 1 MeV—1 GeV available in literature have been implemented to efficiently run on GPUs, allowing to combine a fast tracking while keeping high accuracy in dose assessment. The FRED software has been bench-marked against state-of-art full MC (FLUKA, GEANT4) in the realm of two different radiotherapy applications: Intra-Operative Radio Therapy and Very High Electron Energy radiotherapy applications. Results. The single pencil beam dose-depth profiles in water as well as the dose map computed on non-homogeneous phantom agree with full-MCs at 2% level, observing a gain in processing time from 200 to 5000. Significance. Such performance allows for computing a plan with electron beams in few minutes with an accuracy of ∼%, demonstrating the FRED potential to be adopted for fast plan re-calculation in photon or electron radiotherapy applications.