Abstract
Purpose:To simulate and measure radiation backscattered into the monitor chamber of a TrueBeam linac; establish a rigorous framework for absolute dose calculations for TrueBeam Monte Carlo (MC) simulations through a novel approach, taking into account the backscattered radiation and the actual machine output during beam delivery; improve agreement between measured and simulated relative output factors.Methods:The ‘monitor backscatter factor’ is an essential ingredient of a well‐established MC absolute dose formalism (the MC equivalent of the TG‐51 protocol). This quantity was determined for the 6 MV, 6X FFF, and 10X FFF beams by two independent Methods: (1) MC simulations in the monitor chamber of the TrueBeam linac; (2) linac‐generated beam record data for target current, logged for each beam delivery. Upper head MC simulations used a freelyavailable manufacturer‐provided interface to a cloud‐based platform, allowing use of the same head model as that used to generate the publicly‐available TrueBeam phase spaces, without revealing the upper head design. The MC absolute dose formalism was expanded to allow direct use of target current data.Results:The relation between backscatter, number of electrons incident on the target for one monitor unit, and MC absolute dose was analyzed for open fields, as well as a jaw‐tracking VMAT plan. The agreement between the two methods was better than 0.15%. It was demonstrated that the agreement between measured and simulated relative output factors improves across all field sizes when backscatter is taken into account.Conclusion:For the first time, simulated monitor chamber dose and measured target current for an actual TrueBeam linac were incorporated in the MC absolute dose formalism. In conjunction with the use of MC inputs generated from post‐delivery trajectory‐log files, the present method allows accurate MC dose calculations, without resorting to any of the simplifying assumptions previously made in the TrueBeam MC literature. This work has been partially funded by Varian Medical Systems.
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