Abstract
Recently published Medical Physics Practice Guideline 5.a. (MPPG 5.a.) by American Association of Physicists in Medicine (AAPM) sets the minimum requirements for treatment planning system (TPS) dose algorithm commissioning and quality assurance (QA). The guideline recommends some validation tests and tolerances based primarily on published AAPM task group reports and the criteria used by IROC Houston. We performed the commissioning and validation of the dose algorithms for both megavoltage photon and electron beams on three linacs following MPPG 5.a. We designed the validation experiments in an attempt to highlight the evaluation method and tolerance criteria recommended by the guideline. It seems that comparison of dose profiles using in-water scan is an effective technique for basic photon and electron validation. IMRT/VMAT dose calculation is recommended to be tested with some TG-119 and clinical cases, but no consensus of the tolerance exists. Extensive validation tests have provided the better understanding of the accuracy and limitation of a specific dose calculation algorithm. We believe that some tests and evaluation criteria given in the guideline can be further refined.
Highlights
An overall accuracy of 5% in the delivery of absorbed dose [1] is recommended by the International Commission on Radiation Units (ICRU) and the accuracy of 2% in the computed dose distribution [2] is suggested by American Association of Physicists in Medicine (AAPM)
The extensive validation tests recommended by MPPG 5.a. are meant to understand the accuracy and limitations of a dose algorithm commissioned before it’s implemented in clinic
The MPPG 5.a. adapted the evaluation methods and tolerances for most validation tests from published AAPM task group reports and the criteria used by IROC Houston
Summary
Commissioning a commercial treatment planning system in radiation oncology. AAPM has published a medical physics practice guideline (MPPG 5.a.), [3] which sets the minimum requirements for commissioning and QA of treatment planning dose calculations. Photon beams: basic dose algorithm validation; 6. The guideline has suggested some validation tests and the evaluation criteria in each validation section (basic photon, heterogeneity, IMRT/VMAT and electrons). This work was done at MD Anderson Cancer Center at Cooper for the commissioning of Pinnacle (Philips Radiation Oncology Systems, Fitchburg, WI) treatment planning system v. Modeling of beam data and validation of a dose calculation model involve in-depth knowledge of treatment machine, dose calculation algorithm and dosimetric data measurement, which have been studied extensively (see the references in MPPG 5.a.). The scope of this paper is to provide the first experience of implementing MPPG 5.a. and the related discussion about testing methodologies
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