TPSDose43: A new TG-43 based dose calculation code for brachytherapy

Abstract

Introduction TG-43 formalism is a brachytherapy dose calculation method recommended by AAPM in1995. Purpose To develop and make available a TG-43 based dose calculation code for testing or validating dose distributions from other brachytherapy dose calculation engines such as model based dose calculation algorithms (MBDCA). Materials and methods TPSDose43 can be used to produce 3d dose distributions around brachytherapy sources by using TG-43 formalism. A user is allowed to provide new TG-43 data sets for any source/seed model. It is optional to use either 1d or 2d formalism. In a geometry, multiple sources can be placed at different locations or else one source can move among different dwell points as it does in the routine treatment planning systems. In 2d dose calculations, the orientation of a source can be taken into account. The code was written in C++. Results Dose outputs from TPSDose43 were compared against a well-known Monte Carlo code BrachyDose in certain scenarios where the environment medium is water. Both results were in a very good agreement. Conclusion From our test results we concluded that TPSDose43 is fast, flexible and a simple to use brachytherapy dose calculation program. Also, it is a good candidate of a dose comparison tool for MBDCAs. Disclosure This study is partly supported by The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK) under project number: 213E028.