Monte Carlo estimation of dose difference in lung from 192Ir brachytherapy due to tissue inhomogeneity

Lung brachytherapy using high-dose rate 192Ir technique is a well-established technique of radiation therapy. However, many commercial treatment planning systems do not have the ability to consider the inhomogeneity of lung in relation to normal tissue. Under such circumstances dose calculations for tissues and organs at risk close to the target are inaccurate. The purpose of the current study was to estimate the dose difference due to tissue inhomogeneity using the Monte Carlo simulation code MCNP-5. Results showed that there was a relative sub dosage by treatment planning systems calculations in neighbouring tissues around the radioactive source due to inhomogeneity ignorance. The presence of lung instead of normal tissue resulted in an increase in relative dose, which approached 8 % at 4-cm distance from the source. Additionally, the relative increase was small for the lung (2.1 %) and larger for organs at risk such as the heart (6.8 %) and bone marrow (7.6 %). (authors)