The realization modes of non-coplanar radiotherapy technology / 中华放射肿瘤学杂志

ABSTRACT

Non-coplanar radiotherapy is a kind of radiotherapy technology which employs multiple non-coplanar fixed fields or non-coplanar arcs. The non-coplanar field can be defined that the central axis of each field is not on the same plane, while the non-coplanar arc can be described that the trajectory formed by each arc is not on the same plane. Compared with coplanar radiotherapy, non-coplanar radiotherapy can achieve multi-angle or multi-radian irradiation, which effectively improves the focusing level of ray and is beneficial to enlarge the radiation dose of the target area between the surrounding normal tissues. Its dosimetric advantages have been proven in multiple types of tumors, such as intracranial tumors, liver cancer and lung cancer, etc. Multiple approaches can be employed to realize non-coplanar radiotherapy, which can be divided into the non-coplanar conic radiotherapy, non-coplanar conformal radiotherapy, non-coplanar intensity-modulated radiotherapy and non-coplanar volumetric modulated arc therapy according to the established sequence. In this review, the development process and principal characteristics of these implementations were summarized.