RESUMO
BACKGROUND: High-quality 3D-anatomy of the day is needed for treatment plan adaptation in radiotherapy. For online x-ray-based CBCT workflows, one approach is to create a synthetic CT or to utilize a fan-beam CT with corresponding registrations. The former potentially introduces uncertainties in the dose calculation if deformable image registration is used. The latter can introduce burden and complexity to the process, the facility, and the patient. PURPOSE: Using the CBCT of the day, acquired on the treatment device, for direct dose calculation and plan adaptation can overcome these limitations. This study aims to assess the accuracy of the calculated dose on the CBCT scans acquired on a Halcyon linear accelerator equipped with HyperSight. METHODS: HyperSight's new CBCT reconstruction algorithm includes improvements in scatter correction, HU calibration of the imager, and beam shape adaptation. Furthermore, HyperSight introduced a new x-ray detector. To show the effect of the implemented improvements, gamma comparisons of 2%/2 mm, 2%/1 mm, and 1%/1 mm were made between the dose distribution in phantoms calculated on the CBCT reconstructions and the simulation CT scans, considering this the standard of care. The resulting gamma passing rates were compared to those obtained with the Halcyon 3.0 reconstruction and hardware without HyperSight's technologies. Various anatomical phantoms for dosimetric evaluations on brain, head and neck, lung, breast, and prostate cases have been used in this study. RESULTS: The overall results demonstrated that HyperSight outperformed the Halcyon 3.0 version. Based on the gamma analysis, the calculated dose using HyperSight was closer to the CT scan-based doses than the calculated dose using iCBCT Halcyon 3.0 for most cases. Over all plans and gamma criteria, Halcyon 3.0 achieved an average passing rate of 92.9%, whereas HyperSight achieved 98.1%. CONCLUSION: Using HyperSight CBCT images for direct dose calculation, for example, in (online) plan adaptation, seems feasible for the investigated cases.
RESUMO
Mandatory in several countries, in vivo dosimetry has been recognized as one of the next milestones in radiation oncology. Our department has implemented clinically an EPID based in vivo dosimetry system, EPIgray, by DOSISOFT S.A., since 2006. An analysis of the measurements per linac and energy over a two-year period was performed, which included a more detailed examination per technique and treat-ment site over a six-month period. A comparison of the treatment planning system doses and the doses estimated by EPIgray shows a mean of the differences of 1.9% (± 5.2%) for the two-year period. The 3D conformal treatment plans had a mean dose difference of 2.0% (± 4.9%), while for intensity-modulated radiotherapy and volumetric-modulated arc therapy treatments the mean dose difference was -3.0 (± 5.3%) and -2.5 (± 5.2%), respectively. In addition, root cause analyses were conducted on the in vivo dosimetry measurements of two breast cancer treatment techniques, as well as prostate treatments with intensity-modulated radiotherapy and volumetric-modulated arc therapy. During the breast study, the dose differences of breast treatments in supine position were correlated to patient setup and EPID positioning errors. Based on these observations, an automatic image shift correc-tion algorithm is developed by DOSIsoft S.A. The prostate study revealed that beams and arcs with out-of-tolerance in vivo dosimetry results tend to have more complex modulation and a lower exposure of the points of interest. The statistical studies indicate that in vivo dosimetry with EPIgray has been successfully imple-mented for classical and complex techniques in clinical routine at our institution. The additional breast and prostate studies exhibit the prospects of EPIgray as an easy supplementary quality assurance tool. The validation, the automatization, and the reduction of false-positive results represent an important step toward adaptive radiotherapy with EPIgray.