Modeling scattered radiation from multi-leaf collimators (MLCs) to improve calculation accuracy of in-air output ratio

This study aims to model an extra-focal source for the scattered radiation from multi-leaf collimators (MLCs), namely an MLC scatter source, and to correct in-air output ratio (S(c)) calculated using the conventional dual source model (DSM) to achieve better accuracy of point dose calculation. To develop the MLC scatter source, a 6 MV photon beam from a Varian Clinac® iX linear accelerator with millennium 120 MLCs was used. It was assumed that the position for the MLC scatter source was located at the center of the MLC, consisting of line-based and area-based sources to consider the characteristics of the scattered radiation from the MLCs empirically. Based on the measured S(c) values for MLC-defined fields, optimal parameters for the line-based and area-based sources were calculated using optimization process. For evaluation of proposed method, measurements were taken for various MLC-defined square and irregular fields. The S(c) values calculated using the proposed MLC scatter source and conventional DSM were compared with the measured data. For MLC-defined square fields, the measured S(c) values showed better agreement with those calculated using the MLC scatter source (the mean difference was − 0.03%) compared with those calculated using the DSM (the mean difference was 0.18%). For MLC-defined irregular fields, the maximum dose differences between measurements and calculations using the MLC scatter source and DSM were 0.54% and 1.45%, respectively. The developed MLC scatter source could improve the accuracy of S(c) calculation for both square and irregular fields defined by MLCs.