1.Research progress on total skin irradiation using helical tomotherapy
Haiyang WANG ; Yifei PI ; Chunbo LIU ; Bin HAN ; Fanyang KONG ; Tengfei JI ; Xi PEI ; George Xie XU ; Yuexin GUO
Chinese Journal of Radiation Oncology 2022;31(12):1185-1189
Cutaneous T-cell lymphomas are a relatively rare group of mature T-cell lymphomas mainly manifesting in the skin, and its common subtype is mycosis fungoides. Total skin electron irradiation is one of the important conventional treatment methods, but there are many disadvantages, such as uneven dose distribution, poor position repetition, and long treatment time, which affect the clinical efficacy and patient prognosis. With the emergence and gradual popularization of helical tomotherapy in recent years, more and more medical institutions are gradually expanding their applications in total skin irradiation due to their ability to treat ultra-long targets and achieve dose-sculpted distribution, aiming to further explore its good or bad, and confirm whether it can replace the traditional total skin electron irradiation. In this article, research progress on total skin irradiation using helical tomotherapy was reviewed, the development of treatment technology, clinical efficacy and current concerns and controversies were illustrated.
2.SPEEDO:a rapid and accurate Monte Carlo dose calculation program for carbon ion therapy
Jin WU ; Shijun LI ; Yuxin WANG ; Yankui CHANG ; Xi PEI ; Zhi CHEN ; Weiqiang CHEN ; Qiang LI ; George Xie XU
Chinese Journal of Medical Physics 2024;41(10):1189-1198
Objective To develop a rapid and accurate Monte Carlo program(simplified code for dosimetry of carbon ions,SPEEDO)for carbon ion therapy.Methods For electromagnetic process,type Ⅱ condensed history simulation scheme and continuous slowing down approximation were used to simulate energy straggling,range straggling,multiple scattering,and ionization processes.For nuclear interaction,5 types of target nuclei were considered,including hydrogen,carbon,nitrogen,oxygen,and calcium.The produced secondary charged particles followed the same condensed history framework.The study simulated the transport of carbon ions in 4 materials(water,soft tissues,lung,and bone),and the calculated doses were validated against TOPAS(a Monte Carlo simulation software for radiotherapy physics),followed by a comparison with dose measurements in a water phantom from the HIMM-WW(a medical heavy-ion accelerator facility in Wuwei).Results SPEEDO's simulation results showed good consistency with TOPAS.For each material,in the voxel region where the physical dose was greater than 10%of the maximum dose point,the relative maximum dose error of both was less than 2%.At treatment energy of 400 MeV/u,SPEEDO's computation time was significantly less than that of TOPAS(13.8 min vs 105.0 min).SPEEDO's calculation results also showed good agreement with HIMM-WW measurements in terms of lateral dose distribution and integrated dose depth curve.Conclusion SPEEDO program can accurately and rapidly perform Monte Carlo dose calculations for carbon-ion therapy.
3.Development of a fast Monte Carlo dose verification module for helical tomotherapy
Shijun LI ; Ning GAO ; Bo CHENG ; Yifei PI ; Haiyang WANG ; Yankui CHANG ; Xi PEI ; XU George XIE
Chinese Journal of Medical Physics 2024;41(11):1321-1326
Objective To develop a GPU-based Monte Carlo dose calculation module for helical tomotherapy(TOMO),and integrate it into the commercial software ArcherQA to achieve fast and accurate dose verification in clinic.Methods The TOMO treatment head was modeled using TOPAS to obtain phase space files,and a fast weight tuning algorithm was used to simulate particle transport in multi-leaf collimator for improving computational efficiency,and finally,GPU-based Monte Carlo algorithms in ArcherQA were used to simulate particle transport in patients.To verify the model accuracy,the ArcherQA calculated results in water tank were compared with measured data for different open fields.In addition,multiple comparisons among ArcherQA results,TPS results and ArcCHECK results were conducted on 15 clinical cases(5 cases in the head and neck,5 cases in the chest and abdomen,and 5 cases in the whole body).Results In the water tank tests for 40 cm×5.0 cm,40 cm×2.5 cm and 40 cm× 1.0 cm radiation fields,the average global relative errors of the percentage depth dose,transverse dose distribution,and longitudinal dose distribution calculated by ArcherQA with the corresponding measured values were 0.72%,0.66%,and 0.54%,respectively.Over 98%of the voxels had a global relative error of less than 1%.As for 15 clinical cases,in 2%/2 mm criteria,the mean Gamma passing rate was 98.1%between ArcherQA and TPS,99.1%between TPS and ArcCHECK,and 99.4%between ArcherQA and ArcCHECK.The uncertainty of the simulation maintained less than 1%,and the average time taken for calculation based on patient CT vs ArcCHECK phantom was 87 s vs 64 s.Conclusion ArcherQA can be used for independent dose validation for TOMO plans for it can provide fast and accurate dose calculations.