ABSTRACT
Performances of radiosurgery of intracranial lesions between cone-based Linac system and Tomotherapy-based system were compared in terms of dosimetry and time. Twelve patients with single intracranial lesion treated with cone-based Linac radiosurgery system from 2005 to 2009 were replanned for Tomotherapy-based radiosurgery treatment. The conformity index, homogeneity index (HI), and gradient score index (GSI) of each case was calculated. The Wilcoxon matched-pair test was used to compare the 3 indices between both systems. The cases with regular target (n = 6) and those with irregular target (n = 6) were further analyzed separately. The estimated treatment time between both systems was also compared. Significant differences were found in HI (p = 0.05) and in GSI (p = 0.03) for the whole group. Cone-based radiosurgery was better in GSI whereas Tomotherapy-based radiosurgery was better in HI. Cone-based radiosurgery was better in conformity index (p = 0.03) and GSI (p = 0.03) for regular targets, whereas Tomotherapy-based radiosurgery system performed significantly better in HI (p = 0.03) for irregular targets. The estimated total treatment time for Tomotherapy-based radiosurgery ranged from 24 minutes to 35 minutes, including 15 minutes of pretreatment megavoltage computed tomography (MVCT) and image registration, whereas that for cone-based radiosurgery ranged from 15 minutes for 1 isocenter to 75 minutes for 5 isocenters. As a rule of thumb, Tomotherapy-based radiosurgery system should be the first-line treatment for irregular lesions because of better dose homogeneity and shorter treatment time. Cone-based Linac radiosurgery system should be the treatment of choice for regular targets because of the better dose conformity, rapid dose fall-off, and reasonable treatment time.
Subject(s)
Brain Neoplasms/surgery , Particle Accelerators/instrumentation , Radiometry/methods , Radiosurgery/instrumentation , Radiotherapy Planning, Computer-Assisted/methods , Radiotherapy, Intensity-Modulated/methods , Equipment Design , Equipment Failure Analysis , Humans , Radiosurgery/methods , Radiotherapy Dosage , Radiotherapy, Intensity-Modulated/instrumentation , Reproducibility of Results , Sensitivity and SpecificityABSTRACT
The fan beam thickness (FBT) in helical tomotherapy is defined by a pair of collimators parallel to the rotational orbit of the radiation beam and is fixed for a specific patient treatment. The aim of this case study is to evaluate the dosimetric influence of changing the FBT in the treatment of a nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) patient. The subject was a T2N1M0 stage NPC patient. The planning target volumes (PTVs) of the primary nasopharyngeal tumor and the left and right cervical lymphatics were delineated along with the organs at risk (OARs) in the corresponding computed tomography slices. Three treatment plans with FBT of 1.0 cm, 2.5 cm, and 5.0 cm (FBT-10, FBT-25, and FBT-50) were generated separately based on similar dose constraints and planning parameters. The dosimetric results of the PTV and OARs were collected and compared among the 3 treatment plans. The differences in the dose parameters of the PTVs were small among the 3 plans. The FBT-10 plan demonstrated the most homogeneous PTV doses with the smallest homogeneity indices (HIs). The FBT-50 plan delivered the highest dose to the OARs and the FBT-10 plan delivered the lowest. The differences between the 2 plans were more significant in the spinal cord, optic chiasm, optic nerves, and lens. This case study demonstrated that the variation of FBT in tomotherapy affected the quality of the treatment plan mainly in the OAR doses, but not so much in the PTV. Increasing the FBT reduced the effectiveness in the sparing of OARs.
Subject(s)
Algorithms , Nasopharyngeal Neoplasms/radiotherapy , Radiation Protection/methods , Radiometry/methods , Radiotherapy Planning, Computer-Assisted/methods , Radiotherapy, Conformal/methods , Computer Simulation , Humans , Models, Biological , Radiotherapy DosageABSTRACT
Helical tomotherapy uses different planning algorithm and dose delivery method from the linear accelerator (linac)-based intensity-modulated radiotherapy (IMRT). This study compared the dosimetric outcomes between the tomotherapy plans and conventional linac-based IMRT plans in the treatment of nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC). Fifteen stage II-III cancer (American Joint Committee on Cancer) NPC patients treated by tomotherapy were conveniently recruited. Apart from the tomotherapy plans, a 7-field 6-MV photon conventional IMRT plan was computed for each patient with the same CT dataset and reference from the dose constraints and target dose prescriptions of the tomotherapy plans using the XiO treatment planning system. Average values of the dose parameters including the conformity index (CI), homogeneity index (HI), maximum and minimum doses of the target volumes, and the maximum and mean doses of the organs at risk (OAR) were compared between the two treatment methods. Better dose coverage of the planning target volume (PTV) was demonstrated in the tomotherapy plans, in which the differences in the maximum and mean doses reached statistical significance (p < 0.05). Besides, the CI of the tomotherapy plans were significantly higher than the conventional linac-based plans for the nasopharynx PTV (NP-PTV) and neck lymphatics PTV (LN-PTV) (p = 0.017 and 0.010, respectively). The HI was significantly smaller in both NP-PTV and LN-PTV (p = 0.024 and < 0.001, respectively). Among the OAR, the brain stem and spinal cord doses in the tomotherapy plans were lower than that of the conventional IMRT plans. However, the doses to the other OAR did not show significant dosimetric differences. In the treatment of nasopharyngeal carcinoma, tomotherapy plans were superior to the 7-field conventional IMRT plans in PTV dose conformity and homogeneity and the sparing of the brain stem and spinal cord. However, no significant advantages were observed for the rest of the OAR.
