Abstract:
Background Boron neutron capture therapy (BNCT) is an innovative binary targeted cancer treatment technology with high relative biological effect and cell-scale precision; however, its clinical application is limited by the long computation time of traditional Monte-Carlo methods for dose calculation and the lack of sufficient dosimetric research on head tumors.
Purpose This study aims to address these challenges by optimizing the Monte-Carlo algorithm and developing pre-processing/post-processing modules, verifying the accuracy of the computational system, and analyzing the dosimetric characteristics of BNCT for head tumors.
Methods Based on NECP-MCX, three acceleration strategies, voxel geometry fast tracking, transport-counting integration, and MPI parallel optimization, were adopted to improve computational efficiency. Pre-processing (DICOM image parsing, material-boron concentration mapping, 3D voxel modeling) and post-processing (dose-depth curve, Dose-Volume Histogram (DVH), dose distribution map) modules were developed. Both NECP-MCX and MCNP were used to calculate the dose distribution of a head tumor case (RADCURE-700) for comparison.
Results The single-dose calculation time was reduced from 2 h to 9.4 min. The dose curves, DVH, and dose distribution maps from the two programs showed good consistency with relative deviations below 5% within a depth of 10 cm. The resulting BNCT treatment plan achieved a tumor target volume D90 of 60 Gy in 63 min , with healthy tissue dose below 12.5 Gy.
Conclusions The optimized NECP-MCX system realizes efficient and accurate dose calculation for BNCT. The consistent results validate its reliability, and the dosimetric analysis demonstrates the potential of BNCT for head tumor treatment, providing methodological support for clinical treatment planning.
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