Objective.To study the effects of magnetic field gradients on the dose deposition in an inhomogeneous medium and to present the benefits offered by magnetic-field-modulated radiotherapy (MagMRT) under multiple radiation beams.Approach.Monte Carlo simulations were performed using the Geant4 simulation toolkit with a 7 MV photon beam from an Elekta Unity system. A water cuboid embedded with material slabs of water, bone, lung or air was used to study the effects of MagMRT within inhomogeneous medium. Two cylindrical water phantoms, with and without a toroidal lung insert embedded, were used to study the effects of MagMRT under single, opposing or four cardinal radiation beams. Optimized magnetic field variations in the form of a wavelet were used to induce dose modulation within the material slabs or at the iso-center of the phantoms.Main results.The magnitudes of the dose enhancement and reduction induced by the magnetic field gradients become more prominent in a medium of lower density. A maximum dose increase of 6.5% and a decrease of 4.8% were found inside bone, while an increase of 20.4% and a decrease of 13.9% were found in lung tissue. Under multiple radiation beams, the dose enhancement can be induced at the iso-center while the dose reduction occurs in regions around the tumor. For the case with four cardinal beams irradiating a homogeneous water cylinder, an 8.4% of dose enhancement and a 2.4% of dose reduction were found. When a toroidal lung insert was embedded, a maximum dose enhancement of 9.5% and a reduction of 17.0% were produced for anterior-posterior opposing fields.Significance.With an optimized magnetic field gradient, MagMRT can induce a dose boost to the target while producing a better sparing to the surrounding normal tissue, resulting in a sharper dose fall-off in all directions outside the target volume.
Keywords: MR-LINAC; Monte Carlo; dose modulation; magnetic field; magnetic-field-modulated radiotherapy.
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