A dosimetric study of prostate brachytherapy using Monte Carlo simulations with a voxel phantom, measurements and a comparison with a treatment planning procedure.

In prostate brachytherapy treatments, there is an initial swelling of the prostate of the patient due to an oedema related to the insertion of the seeds. The variation of the prostate volume can lead to variations in the final prescribed dose in treatment planning procedures. As such, it is important to understand their influence for dose optimisation purposes. This work reports on a dosimetric study of the swelling of the prostate in prostate brachytherapy using Monte Carlo simulations. Dosimetric measurements performed on a physical anthropomorphic tissue-equivalent prostate phantom and thermoluminescent dosimeters (TLDs) were used to validate the MC model. Finally the MC model was also used to simulate prostate swelling in a real treatment planning procedure. The obtained results indicate that the parameters mentioned above represent a source of uncertainty in dose assessment in prostate brachytherapy, and can be detrimental to a correct dose evaluation in treatment plannings, and that these parameters can be accurately determined by means of MC simulations with a voxel phantom.