Automatic determination of primary electron beam parameters in Monte Carlo simulation

In order to obtain realistic and reliable Monte Carlo simulations of medical linac photon beams, an accurate determination of the parameters that define the primary electron beam that hits the target is a fundamental step. In this work we propose a new methodology to commission photon beams in Monte Carlo simulations that ensures the reproducibility of a wide range of clinically useful fields. For such purpose accelerated Monte Carlo simulations of 2 X 2, 10 X 10, and 20 X 20 cm(2) fields at SSD=100 cm are carried out for several combinations of the primary electron beam mean energy and radial FWHM. Then, by performing a simultaneous comparison with the correspondent measurements for these same fields, the best combination is selected. This methodology has been employed to determine the characteristics of the primary electron beams that best reproduce a Siemens PRIMUS and a Varian 2100 CD machine in the Monte Carlo simulations. Excellent agreements were obtained between simulations and measurements for a wide range of field sizes. Because precalculated profiles are stored in databases, the whole commissioning process can be fully automated, avoiding manual fine-tunings. These databases can also be used to characterize any accelerators of the same model from different sites. (c) 2007 American Association of Physicists in Medicine.