CheckTomo is an independent dose calculation software for tomotherapy. Recently, Accuray (Accuray Inc., Sunnyvale, CA, USA) released an upgrade of its tomotherapy treatment device, called TomoEDGE Dynamic Jaws, which improves the quality of treatment plans by enhancing the dose delivery with the help of jaws motion. This study describes the upgrade of CheckTomo to that new feature.
To account for the varying width and off-axis shift of dynamic jaws fields, the calculation engine of CheckTomo multiplies the treatment field profile by a penumbral filter and shifts the dose calculation grid. Penumbral filters were obtained by dividing the edge field profiles by that of the corresponding nominal field. They were sampled at widths 1.0, 1.8, and 2.5 cm at isocenter in the edges of the 2.5 and 5 cm treatment field.
The upgrade of CheckTomo was tested on 30 patient treatments planned with dynamic jaws. The gamma pass rate averaged over 10 abdomen plans was 95.9%, with tolerances of 3 mm/3%. For 10 head and neck plans, the mean pass rate was 95.9% for tolerances of 4 mm/4%. Finally, misplacement and overdosage errors were simulated. In each tested cases, the 2 mm/3% gamma pass rate fell below 95% when a 4 mm shift or 3% dose difference was applied.
These results are equivalent to what CheckTomo achieves in static jaws cases. So, in terms of dose calculation accuracy and errors detection, the upgraded version of CheckTomo is as reliable for dynamic jaws plans as the former release was for static cases.