Iranian Journal of Medical Physics

Iranian Journal of Medical Physics

Program development for dose distribution of curved sources configuration of 60Co based on superposition method and EGSnrc code

Document Type : Original Paper

Authors
1 anti cancer centre, Pierre et Marie Curie, algers, algeria
2 department of Interaction Radiation Mater and Theory Physics, SAID DAHLEB university,BLIDA
10.22038/ijmp.2026.87001.2525
Abstract
Brachytherapy uses a treatment planning system (TPS) based on the American Association of Physicists in Medicine Task Group-43 formalism for cylindrical sources. The precise calculation of the dose distribution for particles transported through different mediums depends on the appropriate choice of the Monte Carlo components (the spectral energy of photons and electrons, nature of the medium, process of interaction, transport algorithm, etc). In the present work, we first used the Monte Carlo user code DOSRZnrc to simulate the dose distribution in a cylindrical water medium. Some programs used on Brachytherapy are based on TG43 database of cylindrical sources and correct for photon attenuation and scatter effects of the Titanium applicator or catheter. The aim of this work is a direct simulation of the 60Co seed source attached to a stainless steel cable of 9.8mm and injected in a Titanium Applicator or Catheter to avoid correction factors for photon attenuation and scatter, and yield flexibility to the program and less memory occupied. We then developed a program to calculate the dose distribution of the 60Co seed sources injected in the Applicators for linear and curved configurations with the superposition method and database given by the user code DOSRZnrc. The program developed herein is compared with the TPS Sagiplan algorithm and good agreements were found with the results of dose distribution: 90% of the points on the calculation matrix have a relative deviation of 1-10% which in general are situated far enough from the Applicator (over 2mm); 7% of these points have 11-20% and 3% have 21-35% from which these later points are a bit near the Applicator(1-2mm). The program can calculate the dose deposited with different adjacent combined configurations on different planes, and an option to choose voxel size: 2mm, 1mm, 0.5mm and 0.2mm in the calculation matrix.
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Articles in Press, Accepted Manuscript
Available Online from 14 November 2026

  • Receive Date 30 March 2025
  • Revise Date 11 September 2026
  • Accept Date 09 November 2026