Pitfalls in the beam modelling process of Monte Carlo calculations for proton pencil beam scanning

Objective: Monte Carlo (MC) simulations substantially improve the accuracy of predicted doses. This study aims to determine and quantify the uncertainties of setting up such a MC system. Methods: Doses simulated with two Geant4-based MC calculation codes, but independently tuned to the same beam data, have been compared. Different methods of MC modelling of a pre-absorber have been employed, either modifying the beam source parameters (descriptive) or adding the pre-absorber as a physical component (physical). Results: After the independent beam modelling of both systems in water (resulting in excellent range agreement) range differences of up to 3.6/4.8 mm (1.5% of total range) in bone/brain-like tissues were found, which resulted from the use of different mean water ionisation potentials during the energy tuning process. When repeating using a common definition of water, ranges in bone/brain agreed within 0.1 mm and gamma-analysis (global 1%,1mm) showed excellent agreement (>93%) for all patient fields. However, due to a lack of modelling of proton fluence loss in the descriptive pre-absorber, differences of 7% in absolute dose between the pre-absorber definitions were found. Conclusion: This study quantifies the influence of using different water ionisation potentials during the MC beam modelling process. Furthermore, when using a descriptive pre-absorber model, additional Faraday cup or ionisation chamber measurements with pre-absorber are necessary. Advances in knowledge: This is the first study quantifying the uncertainties caused by the MC beam modelling process for proton pencil beam scanning, and a more detailed beam modelling process for MC simulations is proposed to minimise the influence of critical parameters.