The effect of irregular breathing patterns on internal target volumes in four-dimensional CT and cone-beam CT images in the context of stereotactic lung radiotherapy.

PURPOSE: Stereotactic lung radiotherapy is complicated by tumor motion from patient respiration. Four-dimensional CT (4DCT) imaging is a motion compensation method used in treatment planning to generate a maximum intensity projection (MIP) internal target volume (ITV). Image guided radiotherapy during treatment may involve acquiring a volumetric cone-beam CT (CBCT) image and visually aligning the tumor to the planning 4DCT MIP ITV contour. Moving targets imaged with CBCT can appear blurred and currently there are no studies reporting on the effect that irregular breathing patterns have on CBCT volumes and their alignment to 4DCT MIP ITV contours. The objective of this work was therefore to image a phantom moving with irregular breathing patterns to determine whether any configurations resulted in errors in volume contouring or alignment. METHODS: A Perspex thorax phantom was used to simulate a patient. Three wooden "lung" inserts with embedded Perspex "lesions" were moved up to 4 cm with computer-generated motion patterns, and up to 1 cm with patient-specific breathing patterns. The phantom was imaged on 4DCT and CBCT with the same acquisition settings used for stereotactic lung patients in the clinic and the volumes on all phantom images were contoured. This project assessed the volumes for qualitative and quantitative changes including volume, length of the volume, and errors in alignment between CBCT volumes and 4DCT MIP ITV contours. RESULTS: When motion was introduced 4DCT and CBCT volumes were reduced by up to 20% and 30% and shortened by up to 7 and 11 mm, respectively, indicating that volume was being under-represented at the extremes of motion. Banding artifacts were present in 4DCT MIP images, while CBCT volumes were largely reduced in contrast. When variable amplitudes from patient traces were used and CBCT ITVs were compared to 4DCT MIP ITVs there was a distinct trend in reduced ITV with increasing amplitude that was not seen when compared to true ITVs. Breathing patterns with a rest period following expiration resulted in well-defined superior edges and were better aligned using an edge-to-edge alignment technique. In most cases, sinusoidal motion patterns resulted in the closest agreements to true values and the smallest misalignments. CONCLUSIONS: Strategies are needed to compensate for volume losses at the extremes of motion for both 4DCT MIP and CBCT images for larger and varied amplitudes, and for patterns with rest periods following expiration. Lesions moving greater than 2 cm would warrant larger treatment margins added to the 4DCT MIP ITV to account for the volume being under-represented at the extremes of motion. Lesions moving with a rest period following expiration would be better aligned using an edge-to-edge alignment technique. Sinusoidal patterns represented the ideal clinical scenario, reinforcing the importance of investigating clinically relevant motions and their effects on 4DCT MIP and CBCT volumes. Since most patients do not breathe sinusoidally this may lead to misinterpretation of previous studies using only sinusoidal motion.

Bladder cancer radiotherapy margins: a comparison of daily alignment using skin, bone or soft tissue.

AIMS: To determine the clinical target volume (CTV) to planning target volume (PTV) margins required for bladder coverage when using skin or bony or soft tissue matching on a daily basis. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Twenty-seven patients with T2-T4 transitional cell carcinoma of the bladder were treated with daily online adaptive image-guided radiotherapy using cone beam computed tomography. All daily CTVs were contoured by a single observer. A retrospective comparison of coverage of the bladder CTV using skin, bone and soft tissue matching was conducted. RESULTS: With the skin set-up, bladder CTV coverage with a margin of 0.5, 1.0, 1.5, 2.0 and 2.5 cm was 0, 19, 56, 93 and 96%, respectively. For the daily set-up based on bone, the respective coverage was 0, 41, 63, 89 and 96%. For soft tissue set-up based on the geometric centre of the bladder, coverage was 52, 89, 96, 100 and 100%, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: Based on coverage of the CTV, the required CTV to PTV margins are smaller for the daily online soft tissue set-up compared with skin or bone.

Verification of target position in the post-prostatectomy cancer patient using cone beam CT.

We present the results of a pilot study designed to investigate methods that may be applied to develop a patient position correction protocol for the post-prostatectomy patient receiving radiotherapy. Imaging was carried out with cone beam CT (CBCT) to investigate its suitability for detecting changes in rectal and bladder volumes and movements of these organs relative to the treatment planning CT. Eligible patients were imaged daily during the first week of treatment and weekly thereafter. Surrogate explanatory variables, including distance from the isocentre to the anterior rectum and bladder length, were tested for their potential to substitute for contouring entire organs and predict for changes in coverage of the planning treatment volume (PTV) by the 95% isodose (PTV95) and the maximum dose delivered to 50% of the rectal volume (RECTD50). The PTV defined on the CBCT images was larger than that defined on the planning CT and resulted in a decrease in the PTV95. Bladder length correlated with bladder volume and changes in bladder volume were associated with a decrease in PTV95. Rectal volumes changed randomly during treatment. There was a trend for the rectum to move anteriorly as treatment progressed. CBCT may be used to define the PTV, rectum and bladder though the reason for an apparent increase in PTV on CBCT requires further investigation. The bladder length and distance to the anterior rectal wall are potential surrogate explanatory variables. Further studies will be designed to test values of these surrogates that predict the need for a change in isocentre position.

Offline adaptive radiotherapy for bladder cancer using cone beam computed tomography.

We investigated if an adaptive radiotherapy approach based on cone beam CT (CBCT) acquired during radical treatment was feasible and resulted in improved dosimetric outcomes for bladder cancer patients compared to conventional planning and treatment protocol. A secondary aim was to compare a conventional plan with a theoretical online process where positioning is based on soft tissue position on a daily basis and treatment plan choice is based on bladder size. A conventional treatment plan was derived from a planning CT scan in the radical radiotherapy of five patients with muscle invasive bladder cancer. In this offline adaptive protocol using CBCT, the patients had 10 CBCT: daily CBCT for the first five fractions and then CBCT scan on a weekly basis. The first five daily CBCT in each patient were used to create a single adaptive plan for treatment from fraction eight onwards. A different process using the planning CT and the first five daily CBCT was used to create small, average and large bladder volumes, giving rise to small, average and large adaptive bladder treatment plans, respectively. In a retrospective analysis using the CBCT scans, we compared the clinical target volume (CTV) coverage using three protocols: (i) conventional; (ii) offline adaptive; and (iii) online adaptive with choice of 'plan of the day'. Daily CBCT prolonged treatment time by an average of 7 min. Two of the five patients demonstrated such variation in CTV that an offline adaptive plan was used for treatment after the first five CBCT. Comparing the offline adaptive plan with the conventional plan, the CTV coverage improved from a minimum of 60.1 to 94.7% in subsequent weekly CBCT. Using the CBCT data, modelling an online adaptive protocol showed that coverage of the CTV by the 95% prescribed dose line by small, medium and large adaptive plans were 34.9, 67.4 and 90.7% of occasions, respectively. More normal tissue was irradiated using a conventional CTV to planning target volume margin (1.5 cm) compared to an online adaptive process (0.5 cm). An offline adaptive strategy improves dose coverage in certain patients to the CTV and results in a higher conformity index compared to conventional planning. Further research in online adaptive radiation therapy for bladder cancer is indicated.

Inter-observer variability of clinical target volume delineation for bladder cancer using CT and cone beam CT.

To compare the image quality of cone beam CT (CBCT) with that of planning CT (pCT) scan, and quantify inter-observer differences in therapeutic indices based on these scans prior to the introduction of an adaptive radiation therapy protocol for bladder cancer. Four consecutive patients were selected with muscle invasive bladder cancer receiving radical dose radiation therapy. Four radiation oncologists specializing in genitourinary malignancies contoured the clinical target volume (CTV) and rectum on both a pCT and a randomly chosen CBCT of the same patient. A conformity index (CI) for CTV and the rectum was determined for both pCT and CBCT. The maximal lateral, anterior, posterior, cranial and caudal extensions of the CTV for both CT and CBCT were determined for each observer. Variation in volumes of both the CTV and rectum for both pCT and were also compared using Varian Eclipse planning software (Varian Medical Systems, Palo Alto, CA, USA). Using pCT the mean CI for the CTV was 0.79; using CBCT the mean CI for the CTV was 0.75. For the rectum, the mean CI for using CT was 0.80 and for CBCT was 0.74. Greatest variation on CBCT CTV contours was seen in the supero-inferior direction with variation up to 2.1 cm between different radiation oncologists. With the variation in CI for pCT and CBCT of the CTV and rectum (0.04 and 0.06 respectively), CBCT is not significantly inferior to the pCT in terms of inter-observer contouring variability.

Simple methods to reduce patient dose in a Varian cone beam CT system for delivery verification in pelvic radiotherapy.

Cone-beam computed tomography (CBCT) is a three-dimensional imaging modality that has recently become available on linear accelerators for radiotherapy patient position verification. It was the aim of the present study to implement simple strategies for reduction of the dose delivered in a commercial CBCT system. The dose delivered in a CBCT procedure (Varian, half-fan acquisition, 650 projections, 125 kVp) was assessed using a cylindrical Perspex phantom (diameter, 32 cm) with a calibrated Farmer type ionisation chamber. A copper filter (thickness, 0.15 mm) was introduced increasing the half value layer of the beam from 5.5 mm Al to 8 mm Al. Image quality and noise were assessed using an image quality phantom (CatPhan) while the exposure settings per projection were varied from 25 ms/80 mA to 2 ms/2 mA per projection. Using the copper filter reduced the dose to the phantom from approximately 45 mGy to 30 mGy at standard settings (centre/periphery weighting 1/3 to 2/3). Multiple CBCT images were acquired for six patients with pelvic malignancies to compare CBCTs with and without a copper filter. Although the reconstructed image is somewhat noisier with the filter, it features similar contrast in the centre of the patient and was often preferred by the radiation oncologist because of greater image uniformity. The X-ray shutters were adjusted to the minimum size required to obtain the desired image volume for a given patient diameter. The simple methods described here reduce the effective dose to patients undergoing daily CBCT and are easy to implement, and initial evidence suggests that they do not affect the ability to identify soft tissue for the purpose of treatment verification.