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The Monte Carlo radiotherapy system PRIMO: Dosimetry and treatment planning research problems

The Monte Carlo system

Guest Edited by Dr Lorenzo Brualla and Dr Luca Cozzi

Monte Carlo simulation is the state-of-the-art for the study of radiation transport problems in radiotherapy, in particular for modelling medical linear accelerators (linacs). PRIMO is a software system based on the Monte Carlo method that simulates linacs and absorbed dose distributions in external beam radiotherapy patients. The software has been installed in nearly 300 hospitals and in about 100 universities worldwide. It is being used in the clinical practice, in dosimetry, and for educational and research applications. The aim of this series is to gather the advances in the aforementioned areas that have been achieved using PRIMO. Submission to the series is by invitation only from the Guest Editors.

Competing interests:

Dr Lorenzo Brualla declares he is one of the authors of the software PRIMO.

Please click here to submit a manuscript to this series.


  1. Any Monte Carlo simulation of dose delivery using medical accelerator-generated megavolt photon beams begins by simulating electrons of the primary electron beam interacting with a target. Because the electron...

    Authors: Zbisław Tabor, Damian Kabat and Michael P. R. Waligórski
    Citation: Radiation Oncology 2021 16:124
    Content type: Research Published on:

    The Correction to this article has been published in Radiation Oncology 2022 17:44

  3. PRIMO is a graphical environment based on PENELOPE Monte Carlo (MC) simulation of radiotherapy beams able to compute dose distribution in patients, from plans with different techniques. The dosimetric characte...

    Authors: Lucia Paganini, Giacomo Reggiori, Antonella Stravato, Valentina Palumbo, Pietro Mancosu, Francesca Lobefalo, Anna Gaudino, Antonella Fogliata, Marta Scorsetti and Stefano Tomatis
    Citation: Radiation Oncology 2019 14:216
    Content type: Research Published on:

  5. This study aimed to evaluate the role of postoperative radiotherapy (RT) in dermatofibrosarcoma protuberans (DFSP) and identify the prognostic factors influencing the disease-free survival (DFS).

    Authors: Kaixin Du, Jinluan Li, Lirui Tang, Xiaoyi Lin, Xiangquan Kong, Xuehong Liao, Qingqin Peng, Yaping Dong, Junyan He, Yunxia Huang, Xueqing Zhang, Feifei Lin, Qingyang Zhuang and Junxin Wu
    Citation: Radiation Oncology 2019 14:20
    Content type: Research Published on:

  7. PRIMO is a dose verification system based on the general-purpose Monte Carlo radiation transport code penelope, which implements an accurate physics model of the interaction cross sections and the radiation trans...

    Authors: Miguel Rodriguez, Josep Sempau, Christian Bäumer, Beate Timmermann and Lorenzo Brualla
    Citation: Radiation Oncology 2018 13:256
    Content type: Research Published on:

  8. The software PRIMO for the Monte Carlo simulation of radiotherapy linacs could potentially act as a independent calculation system to verify the calculations of treatment planning systems. We investigated the ...

    Authors: Marcelino Hermida–López, David Sánchez–Artuñedo and Juan Francisco Calvo–Ortega
    Citation: Radiation Oncology 2018 13:144
    Content type: Research Published on:

  9. To evaluate the difference of absorbed doses calculated to medium and to water by a Monte Carlo (MC) algorithm based treatment planning system (TPS), and to assess the potential clinical impact to dose prescri...

    Authors: Li Chen, Botian Huang, Xiaoyan Huang, Wufei Cao, Wenzhao Sun and Xiaowu Deng
    Citation: Radiation Oncology 2018 13:137
    Content type: Research Published on:

  10. Linac output as a function of field sizes has a phantom and a head scatter component. This last term can be measured in-air with appropriate build-up ensuring a complete electron equilibrium and the absence of...

    Authors: A. Fogliata, A. Stravato, G. Reggiori, S. Tomatis, J. Würfel, M. Scorsetti and L. Cozzi
    Citation: Radiation Oncology 2018 13:126
    Content type: Research Published on:

  11. The use of the Monte Carlo (MC) method in radiotherapy dosimetry has increased almost exponentially in the last decades. Its widespread use in the field has converted this computer simulation technique in a co...

    Authors: Pedro Andreo
    Citation: Radiation Oncology 2018 13:121
    Content type: Review Published on:

  12. A new implementation has been made on CloudMC, a cloud-based platform presented in a previous work, in order to provide services for radiotherapy treatment verification by means of Monte Carlo in a fast, easy ...

    Authors: Hector Miras, Rubén Jiménez, Álvaro Perales, José Antonio Terrón, Alejandro Bertolet, Antonio Ortiz and José Macías
    Citation: Radiation Oncology 2018 13:99
    Content type: Research Published on:

  14. IMRT provides higher dose conformation to the target and dose sparing to surrounding tissues than 3DCRT. Monte Carlo method in Medical Physics is not a novelty to approach dosimetric problems. A new PENELOPE b...

    Authors: Alessandro Esposito, Sofia Silva, Jorge Oliveira, Joana Lencart and João Santos
    Citation: Radiation Oncology 2018 13:91
    Content type: Research Published on: