PRIMO related news and events
Full Monte Carlo dose verification system for external beam radiotherapy
Generating research and advances in medical physics
- 2025-08-06. The new webpage for the PRIMO project is now online.
- 2021-10-08. PRIMO version 0.3.(32-64).1814 is publicly available. This version corrects bugs and adds new materials. A list of changes appears in ChangeHistory.txt. There is only a 64 bit version.ChangeHistory.txt.
- 2020-09-24 PRIMO version 0.3.(32-64).1800 is publicly available. This version corrects bugs. A list of changes appears in ChangeHistory.txt. There are 64 and 32 bit installer files for this version. Choose the one that suits your computer architecture and operating system. The 64 bit version handles linac geometry operations much faster than the 32 bit version. This version allows to import TrueBeam plans, to export dose in different formats and to simulate stereotactic cones, among other new developments.ChangeHistory.txt
- 2019-08-02 PRIMO version 0.3.1.1772 is publicly available. This version corrects bugs. A list of changes appears in ChangeHistory.txt. There are 64 and 32 bit installer files for this version. Choose the one that suits your computer architecture and operating system. The 64 bit version handles linac geometry operations much faster than the 32 bit version.ChangeHistory.txt
- 2019-07-15 A short PRIMO course will be given on September 10, 2019, during the 24th International Conference on Medical Physics that will take place in Santiago de Chile. More info here.
- 2019-06-17 PRIMO version 0.3.1.1770 is publicly available. This version contains major improvements and new functions, such as computing dose distributions from Varian Dynalog files, a macro command interpreter for automatizing PRIMO operation, and a new phase space analysics work space. A list of changes appears in ChangeHistory.txt. The User's Manual has been updated. There are 64 and 32 bit installer files for this version. Choose the one that suits your computer architecture and operating system. The 64 bit version handles linac geometry operations much faster than the 32 bit version.ChangeHistory.txt
- 2019-04-23 An article on treatment verification using Varian's dynalog files in PRIMO has been published. This feature will appear in the next version of PRIMO. The article can be freely downloaded from this website.The article can be freely downloaded from this website.
- 2019-01-13 Tutorial videos have been filmed and published in a PRIMO YouTube channel. More videos will be added.PRIMO YouTube channel.
- 2019-01-13 An article on PENELOPE/PRIMO-caculated photon and electron energy spectra from clinical accelerators has been published. The article, as well as the spectra in PDF and Excel format, are distributed in this website.Available here.
- 2018-12-27 An article on the implementation of DPM in PRIMO has been published. The article can be freely downloaded from this website. Available here.
- 2018-06-21 PRIMO version 0.3.1.1659 is publicly available. This version corrects bugs. A list of the corrections appears in the ChangeHistory.txt ChangeHistory.txt
- 2018-03-20 PRIMO version 0.3.1.1626 is publicly available. This version includes a faster gamma analysis algorithm. Bugs have been corrected.
- 2018-01-31 PRIMO version 0.3.1.1600 is publicly available. This version includes major changes in the software. Please refer to the User's Manual.
- 2017-09-23 The "Workshop on the Monte Carlo radiotherapy system PRIMO" held at the Universitätsklinikum Essen from September 20 to 22 has finalized. A special issue on dosimetry and treatment planning research problems related to PRIMO will be published in Radiotherapy and Oncology. Everyone, not only those who participated in the workshop, are invited to submit a manuscript to the journal. The submission deadline is March 31, 2018. More information can be found here.
- 2016-11-27 A review article on Monte Carlo systems used for treatment planning and dose verification in external beam radiotherapy with linacs has been published in Strahlentherapie und Onkologie. A read-only version of the article is freely available here.A read-only version of the article is freely available here.
- 2015-11-20 PRIMO version 0.1.5.1307 is publicly available. This version corrects minor bugs.
- 2015-05-18 The FakeBeam paper has been published today in PMB. The article contains a detailed geometry for simulating TrueBeam linacs. We kindly ask researchers to use the PMB version when citing this work.Author's version of the paper is freely available here.
- 2015-05-18 A paper studying the effect of the C1 and C2 transport parameters in the linac target has been published today in Med. Phys. The article is available here.
- 2015-04-23 PRIMO version 0.1.5.1300 is publicly available. This version adds the beam divergence as a new beam parameter. A minor bug in the dose distribution visualization has been corrected. The User's Manual has been updated for this version.For a complete list of changes please refer to the ChangeHistory.txtChangeHistory.txt
- 2015-02-24 We have published the FakeBeam paper on the arXiv. This article contains the detailed geometrical information of FakeBeam. The article has also been published in PMB. We kindly ask researchers to use the PMB version when citing this work.The PMB article can be accessed by clicking here
- 2014-12-30 PRIMO version 0.1.5.1202 is publicly available. This version contains the geometry of the Varian MLC 120 Millenium. The geometry of the Varian MLC 120 High Definition has been fully rewritten. For a complete list of changes please refer to the ChangeHistory.txt file. ChangeHistory.txt
- 2014-08-26 PRIMO version 0.1.3.398 is publicly available. This version contains an experimentally-based complete geometry of the TrueBeam linac. In order to make clear that this geometry is not the actual geometry of TrueBeam, we have called it FakeBeam. The simulations we have run with FakeBeam give more accurate results when compared to experimental data (Varian Golden Beam Dataset and in-house measurements) than those obtained using the second generation of Varian's phase-space files for the 6 FFF and 10 FFF beams. By means of FakeBeam users of PRIMO can simulate TrueBeam linacs without the limitations associated to third-party phase-space files. Since PRIMO tallies phase-space files in the IAEA format, users of other Monte Carlo codes can employ PRIMO for generating phase-space files that can be subsequently used in their own codes. We have just submitted a manuscript for publication that contains the detailed geometrical description of FakeBeam, including blueprints. Once the manuscript is published, researchers using any Monte Carlo code will be able to implement the FakeBeam geometry in their own simulations. Other minor changes have been included in this version. For a complete list of changes please refer to the ChangeHistory.txt file. The User's Manual and the Quick Start Guide have not been updated for this version. Please refer to the whole ChangeHistory.txt file in order to know what has changed respect to the version described in the Manual and the Guide.ChangeHistory.txt
- 2014-07-08 PRIMO version 0.1.3.144 is publicly available. This version corrects a bug related to CT images. The bug affected all users working with CT images with different voxel dimensions on the x and y direction. The User's Manual and the Quick Start Guide have not been updated for this version. Please refer to the whole ChangeHistory.txt file in order to know what has changed respect to the version described in the Manual and the Guide.ChangeHistory.txt
- 2014-05-28 PRIMO version 0.1.3.137 is publicly available. Major changes respect to previous version are: i) The default transport parameters (C1, C2, WCC, WCR) for the simulation of photon targets have changed in order to produce a more accurate angular distribution of bremsstrahlung photons. The default primary beam parameters (initial energy, FWHM of energy, focal spot size) have also changed for all photon beams. We strongly suggest users to tune again the primary beam parameters for all photon beams they are using, and to tally new phase-space files for s1. DO NOT load an old project and simulate s1 again. Instead, start a new project from scratch. Note that these changes only affect photon beams of Elekta and Varian linacs. Electron beams are not affected. ii) The default installation directory for PRIMO is now c:\PRIMO. Other installation directories are still supported by modifying the default option during the installation process. iii) A bug was corrected in the Varian 120 High Definition MLC. This bug produced a wrong displacement of leaves 1B and 2B. iv) The 'BEV Edit' window has been substantially improved. Notes: a) A complete list of changes can be found in the file ChangeHistory.txt located in the directory c:\PRIMO\docs and here. b) The User's Manual and the Quick Start Guide have not been updated for this version. Please refer to the whole ChangeHistory.txt file in order to know what has changed respect to the version described in the Manual and the Guide. ChangeHistory.txt
- 2014-03-14 The European Federation of Organisations for Medical Physics (EFOMP) has published in its winter newsletter an article about PRIMO (European Medical Physics News, Winter 2013/14, pp. 15-17). This article contains a brief description of PRIMO's characteristics. The article is freely available here.
- 2013-12-11 PRIMO version 0.1.1.11 is publicly available. Main changes in this version are: i) New Varian MLC 120 High Definition geometry that has been validated with experimental data; ii) Maximum size of the water phantom grid has been increased to 400x400x400 cm3 (the maximum allowed size has been increased, but not the maximum number of bins, which remains at 1E7. Bear this fact in mind when defining the bin size, so not to exceed the maximum number of bins. The graphical user interface will not allow a combination of bin size and grid size such that the number of bins exceeds the value of 1E7); iii) The maximum allowed SSD has been increased to 600 cm. For a full list of changes look at the ChangeHistory.txt file that can be found in the Download page and in the documentation directory created during the installation of PRIMO.
- 2013-09-09 PRIMO version 0.1.1.3 is publicly available.
- 2013-09-05 The paper of PRIMO has been published online at http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00066-013-0415-1 .
- 2013-05-09 The beta version of PRIMO (0.1) has been released to selected beta testers. Public release is expected in a few weeks.
- 2012-06-10 PRIMO was awarded with the Poster Prize during the annual Congress of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Radioonkologie (German Society for Radiation Oncology, DEGRO).