Conclusions: The presented solution has several advantages over the BQS-based parallel implementation available for the EGSnrc system. One of the main advantages is that, in contrast to the BQS alternative, it can be implemented using different compilers and operative systems, which turns it into a compact and portable solution that can be used on a wide range of working environments. It does not introduce artifacts on the simulated distributions, as it only handles the distribution of work among the available computing resources and it proved to have a better performance. (C) 2017 American Association of Physicists in Medicine.