Comment on 'egs-brachy: A versatile and fast Monte Carlo code for brachytherapy'
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2018
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Abstract
In a recent paper (Chamberland et al 2016 Phys. Med. Biol. 61 8214) develop a new Monte Carlo code called egs-brachy for brachytherapy treatments. It is based on EGSnrc, and written in the C++ programming language. In order to benchmark the egs-brachy code, the authors use it in various test case scenarios in which complex geometry conditions exist. Another EGSnrc based brachytherapy dose calculation engine, BrachyDose, is used for dose comparisons. The authors fail to prove that egs-brachy can produce reasonable dose values for brachytherapy sources in a given medium. The dose comparisons in the paper are erroneous and misleading. egs-brachy should not be used in any further research studies unless and until all the potential bugs are fixed in the code. © 2018 Institute of Physics and Engineering in Medicine.
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Brachytherapy , Monte Carlo Method , Phantoms, Imaging , Codes (symbols) , Monte Carlo methods , Oncology , Radiotherapy , BrachyDose , Brachytherapy , Complex geometries , Dose calculation , Dose comparison , egs-brachy , Monte Carlo codes , Research studies , brachytherapy , imaging phantom , Monte Carlo method , C++ (programming language)