Local seed displacement from Day 0 to Day 30 in I-125 permanent prostate brachytherapy: A detailed, computed tomography-based analysis.

PURPOSE: To accurately quantify local seed displacement from Day 0 to Day 30 for our brachytherapy procedure. To quantify seed loss/migration and to identify the locations from where seeds are missing. METHODS AND MATERIALS: Seed displacements were analyzed in 62 consecutive patients, who received brachytherapy with stranded I-125 seeds. At the start of the procedure, four fiducial gold markers were implanted. At the end of the implantation procedure an in-room 3D CBCT scan (Day 0) was acquired for accurate seed localization. At Day 30 a regular CT scan was acquired. This CT scan was rigidly registered to the CBCT scan using the fiducials. Subsequently, the Hungarian method was used to find pairs of corresponding seeds. Displacements were calculated and missing seeds were identified. RESULTS: Local seed displacements are smaller than 5 mm for 76.3% of the seeds; 2.3% show displacements larger than 10 mm. The largest seed displacements are seen along the inferior-superior axis: on average 1.0 ± 3.2 mm in superior direction with respect to the intraprostatic fiducials. Largest displacements are seen at the inferior-lateral sides of the prostate. On average, the inferior seeds move 1.0 ± 2.8 mm in anterior and 1.8 ± 3.3 mm in superior direction. The percentage of missing seeds is 0.2% (8 out of 3893 seeds for 5 patients). Most of the missing seeds were also originally implanted at the inferior-lateral sides of the prostate. CONCLUSIONS: Local seed displacements and number of missing seeds are small, and predominantly occur around the apex.

Dosimetric impact of contouring and image registration variability on dynamic 125I prostate brachytherapy.

PURPOSE: The quality of permanent prostate brachytherapy can be increased by addition of imaging modalities in the intraoperative procedure. This addition involves image registration, which inherently has inter- and intraobserver variabilities. We sought to quantify the inter- and intraobserver variabilities in geometry and dosimetry for contouring and image registration and analyze the results for our dynamic 125I brachytherapy procedure. METHODS AND MATERIALS: Five observers contoured 11 transrectal ultrasound (TRUS) data sets three times and 11 CT data sets one time. The observers registered 11 TRUS and MRI data sets to cone beam CT (CBCT) using fiducial gold markers. Geometrical and dosimetrical inter- and intraobserver variabilities were assessed. For the contouring study, structures were subdivided into three parts along the craniocaudal axis. RESULTS: We analyzed 165 observations. Interobserver geometrical variability for prostate was 1.1 mm, resulting in a dosimetric variability of 1.6% for V100 and 9.3% for D90. The geometric intraobserver variability was 0.6 mm with a V100 of 0.7% and D90 of 1.1%. TRUS-CBCT registration showed an interobserver variability in V100 of 2.0% and D90 of 3.1%. Intraobserver variabilities were 0.9% and 1.6%, respectively. For MRI-CBCT registration, V100 and D90 were 1.3% and 2.1%. Intraobserver variabilities were 0.7% and 1.1% for the same. CONCLUSIONS: Prostate dosimetry is affected by interobserver contouring and registration variability. The observed variability is smaller than underdosages that are adapted during our dynamic brachytherapy procedure.

Cone-beam CT-based adaptive planning improves permanent prostate brachytherapy dosimetry: An analysis of 1266 patients.

PURPOSE: To evaluate adaptive planning for permanent prostate brachytherapy and to identify the prostate regions that needed adaptation. METHODS AND MATERIALS: After the implantation of stranded seeds, using real-time intraoperative planning, a transrectal ultrasound (TRUS)-scan was obtained and contoured. The positions of seeds were determined on a C-arm cone-beam computed tomography (CBCT)-scan. The CBCT-scan was registered to the TRUS-scan using fiducial gold markers. If dose coverage on the combined image-dataset was inadequate, an intraoperative adaptation was performed by placing remedial seeds. CBCT-based intraoperative dosimetry was analyzed for the prostate (D90, V100, and V150) and the urethra (D30). The effects of the adaptive dosimetry procedure for Day 30 were separately assessed. RESULTS: We analyzed 1266 patients. In 17.4% of the procedures, an adaptation was performed. Without the dose contribution of the adaptation Day 30 V100 would be < 95% for half of this group. On Day 0, the increase due to the adaptation was 11.8 ± 7.2% (1SD) for D90 and 9.0 ± 6.4% for V100. On Day 30, we observed an increase in D90 of 12.3 ± 6.0% and in V100 of 4.2 ± 4.3%. For the total group, a D90 of 119.6 ± 9.1% and V100 of 97.7 ± 2.5% was achieved. Most remedial seeds were placed anteriorly near the base of the prostate. CONCLUSION: CBCT-based adaptive planning enables identification of implants needing adaptation and improves prostate dose coverage. Adaptations were predominantly performed near the anterior base of the prostate.