Development of an IAEA phase-space dataset for the Leksell Gamma Knife® Perfexion™ using multi-threaded Geant4 simulations

Abstract This study was conducted to develop a phase-space dataset in the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) format for Monte Carlo (MC) simulations of the Leksell Gamma Knife® (LGK, Elekta Instrument AB, Stockholm, Sweden) Perfexion™ (PFX). An open-source MC code, namely, the Geant4 toolkit with a recently updated multi-threaded mode, was used to maximize the efficiency of the developed IAEA phase-space dataset. The absorbed dose profiles for single shots of the LGK PFX were calculated using the developed dataset and compared with those from radiochromic film measurements and Leksell GammaPlan® version 11.0.3 (LGP, Elekta Instruments) for verification. The mean relative absorbed dose differences in all single shots were less than 3.6% compared with the films and less than 4.0% compared with LGP. The collimator output factors were also calculated for all single shots and compared with the LGP results. The simulated collimator output factor was 0.816 ± 0.003 for a 4-mm shot and 0.903 ± 0.001 for an 8-mm shot in a spherical water phantom. The efficiency of the developed dataset was evaluated by comparing the times required for various simulations. Simulations with the phase-space dataset ran 25, 8.2 and 3.2 times faster than simulations without the phase-space dataset for 4-, 8-, and 16-mm shots, respectively. Using the dataset developed in this study, MC simulations of the LGK PFX can be performed more efficiently for various purposes, such as treatment plan verification and beam quality factor calculations.