Estimating the uncertainty of calculated out‐of‐field organ dose from a commercial treatment planning system

Therapeutic radiation to cancer patients is accompanied by unintended radiation to organs outside the treatment field. It is known that the model‐based dose algorithm has limitation in calculating the out‐of‐field doses. This study evaluated the out‐of‐field dose calculated by the Varian Eclipse treatment planning system (v.11 with AAA algorithm) in realistic treatment plans with the goal of estimating the uncertainties of calculated organ doses. Photon beam phase‐space files for TrueBeam linear accelerator were provided by Varian. These were used as incident sources in EGSnrc Monte Carlo simulations of radiation transport through the downstream jaws and MLC. Dynamic movements of the MLC leaves were fully modeled based on treatment plans using IMRT or VMAT techniques. The Monte Carlo calculated out‐of‐field doses were then compared with those calculated by Eclipse. The dose comparisons were performed for different beam energies and treatment sites, including head‐and‐neck, lung, and pelvis. For 6 MV (FF/FFF), 10 MV (FF/FFF), and 15 MV (FF) beams, Eclipse underestimated out‐of‐field local doses by 30%–50% compared with Monte Carlo calculations when the local dose was <1% of prescribed dose. The accuracy of out‐of‐field dose calculations using Eclipse is improved when collimator jaws were set at the smallest possible aperture for MLC openings. The Eclipse system consistently underestimates out‐of‐field dose by a factor of 2 for all beam energies studied at the local dose level of less than 1% of prescribed dose. These findings are useful in providing information on the uncertainties of out‐of‐field organ doses calculated by Eclipse treatment planning system.