Purpose

To determine out-of-field doses produced in proton pencil beam scanning (PBS) therapy using Monte Carlo simulations and to estimate the associated risk of radiation-induced second cancer from a brain tumor treatment.

Methods

Simulations of out-of-field absorbed doses were performed with MCNP6 and benchmarked against measurements with tissue-equivalent proportional counters (TEPC) for three irradiation setups: two irradiations of a water phantom using proton energies of 78-147 MeV and 177-223 MeV, and one brain tumor irradiation of a whole-body phantom. Out-of-field absorbed and equivalent doses to organs in a whole-body phantom following a brain tumor treatment were subsequently simulated and used to estimate the risk of radiation-induced cancer. Additionally, the contribution of absorbed dose originating from radiation produced in the nozzle was calculated from simulations.

Results

Out-of-field absorbed doses to the TEPC ranged from 0.4 to 135 mu Gy/Gy. The average deviation between simulations and measurements of the water phantom irradiations was about 17%. The absorbed dose contribution from radiation produced in the nozzle ranged between 0 and 70% of the total dose; the contribution was however small in absolute terms. The absorbed and equivalent doses to the organs ranged between 0.2 and 60 mu Gy/Gy and 0.5-151 mu Sv/Gy. The estimated lifetime risk of radiation-induced second cancer was approximately 0.01%.

Conclusions

The agreement of out-of-field absorbed doses between measurements and simulations was good given the sources of uncertainties. Calculations of out-of-field organ doses following a brain tumor treatment indicated that proton PBS therapy of brain tumors is associated with a low risk of radiation-induced cancer.