On source models for 192Ir HDR brachytherapy dosimetry using model based algorithms

A source model is a prerequisite of all model based dose calculation algorithms. Besides direct simulation, the use of pre-calculated phase space files (phsp source models) and parameterized phsp source models has been proposed for Monte Carlo (MC) to promote efficiency and ease of implementation in obtaining photon energy, position and direction. In this work, a phsp file for a generic Ir-192 source design (Ballester et al 2015) is obtained from MC simulation. This is used to configure a parameterized phsp source model comprising appropriate probability density functions (PDFs) and a sampling procedure. According to phsp data analysis 15.6% of the generated photons are absorbed within the source, and 90.4% of the emergent photons are primary. The PDFs for sampling photon energy and direction relative to the source long axis, depend on the position of photon emergence. Photons emerge mainly from the cylindrical source surface with a constant probability over +/- 0.1 cm from the center of the 0.35 cm long source core, and only 1.7% and 0.2% emerge from the source tip and drive wire, respectively. Based on these findings, an analytical parameterized source model is prepared for the calculation of the PDFs from data of source geometry and materials, without the need for a phsp file. The PDFs from the analytical parameterized source model are in close agreement with those employed in the parameterized phsp source model. This agreement prompted the proposal of a purely analytical source model based on isotropic emission of photons generated homogeneously within the source core with energy sampled from the Ir-192 spectrum, and the assignment of a weight according to attenuation within the source. Comparison of single source dosimetry data obtained from detailed MC simulation and the proposed analytical source model show agreement better than 2% except for points lying close to the source longitudinal axis.