The integration of adaptive radiation therapy (ART), or modifying the treatment plan during the treatment course, is becoming more widely available in clinical practice. ART offers strong potential ...for minimizing treatment-related toxicity while escalating or de-escalating target doses based on the dose to organs at risk. Yet, ART workflows add complexity into the radiation therapy planning and delivery process that may introduce additional uncertainties. This work sought to review presently available ART workflows and technological considerations such as image quality, deformable image registration, and dose accumulation. Quality assurance considerations for ART components and minimum recommendations are described. Personnel and workflow efficiency recommendations are provided, as is a summary of currently available clinical evidence supporting the implementation of ART. Finally, to guide future clinical trial protocols, an example ART physician directive and a physics template following standard NRG Oncology protocol is provided.
Task Group 101 of the AAPM has prepared this report for medical physicists, clinicians, and therapists in order to outline the best practice guidelines for the external-beam radiation therapy ...technique referred to as stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT). The task group report includes a review of the literature to identify reported clinical findings and expected outcomes for this treatment modality. Information is provided for establishing a SBRT program, including protocols, equipment, resources, and QA procedures. Additionally, suggestions for developing consistent documentation for prescribing, reporting, and recording SBRT treatment delivery is provided.
To identify the dose-volume parameters that predict the risk of chest wall (CW) pain and/or rib fracture after lung stereotactic body radiotherapy.
From a combined, larger multi-institution ...experience, 60 consecutive patients treated with three to five fractions of stereotactic body radiotherapy for primary or metastatic peripheral lung lesions were reviewed. CW pain was assessed using the Common Toxicity Criteria for pain. Peripheral lung lesions were defined as those located within 2.5 cm of the CW. A minimal point dose of 20 Gy to the CW was required. The CW volume receiving >or=20, >or=30, >or=40, >or=50, and >or=60 Gy was determined and related to the risk of CW toxicity.
Of the 60 patients, 17 experienced Grade 3 CW pain and five rib fractures. The median interval to the onset of severe pain and/or fracture was 7.1 months. The risk of CW toxicity was fitted to the median effective concentration dose-response model. The CW volume receiving 30 Gy best predicted the risk of severe CW pain and/or rib fracture (R(2) = 0.9552). A volume threshold of 30 cm(3) was observed before severe pain and/or rib fracture was reported. A 30% risk of developing severe CW toxicity correlated with a CW volume of 35 cm(3) receiving 30 Gy.
The development of CW toxicity is clinically relevant, and the CW should be considered an organ at risk in treatment planning. The CW volume receiving 30 Gy in three to five fractions should be limited to <30 cm(3), if possible, to reduce the risk of toxicity without compromising tumor coverage.
Impaired function of masticatory muscles will lead to trismus. Routine delineation of these muscles during planning may improve dose tracking and facilitate dose reduction resulting in decreased ...radiation-related trismus. This study aimed to compare a deep learning model with a commercial atlas-based model for fast auto-segmentation of the masticatory muscles on head and neck computed tomography (CT) images.
Paired masseter (M), temporalis (T), medial and lateral pterygoid (MP, LP) muscles were manually segmented on 56 CT images. CT images were randomly divided into training (n = 27) and validation (n = 29) cohorts. Two methods were used for automatic delineation of masticatory muscles (MMs): Deep learning auto-segmentation (DLAS) and atlas-based auto-segmentation (ABAS). The automatic algorithms were evaluated using Dice similarity coefficient (DSC), recall, precision, Hausdorff distance (HD), HD95, and mean surface distance (MSD). A consolidated score was calculated by normalizing the metrics against interobserver variability and averaging over all patients. Differences in dose (∆Dose) to MMs for DLAS and ABAS segmentations were assessed. A paired t-test was used to compare the geometric and dosimetric difference between DLAS and ABAS methods.
DLAS outperformed ABAS in delineating all MMs (p < 0.05). The DLAS mean DSC for M, T, MP, and LP ranged from 0.83 ± 0.03 to 0.89 ± 0.02, the ABAS mean DSC ranged from 0.79 ± 0.05 to 0.85 ± 0.04. The mean value for recall, HD, HD95, MSD also improved with DLAS for auto-segmentation. Interobserver variation revealed the highest variability in DSC and MSD for both T and MP, and the highest scores were achieved for T by both automatic algorithms. With few exceptions, the mean ∆D98%, ∆D95%, ∆D50%, and ∆D2% for all structures were below 10% for DLAS and ABAS and had no detectable statistical difference (P > 0.05). DLAS based contours had dose endpoints more closely matched with that of the manually segmented when compared with ABAS.
DLAS auto-segmentation of masticatory muscles for the head and neck radiotherapy had improved segmentation accuracy compared with ABAS with no qualitative difference in dosimetric endpoints compared to manually segmented contours.
Recent improvements in toxicity profiles of pediatric oncology patients are attributable, in part, to advances in the field of radiation oncology such as intensity modulated radiation (IMRT) and ...proton therapy (IMPT). While IMRT and IMPT deliver highly conformal dose to targeted volumes, they commonly demand the addition of 2- or 3-dimensional imaging for precise positioning--a technique known as image guided radiation therapy (IGRT). In this manuscript we address strategies to further minimize exposure risk in children by reducing effective IGRT dose. Portal X rays and cone beam computed tomography (CBCT) are commonly used to verify patient position during IGRT and, because their relative radiation exposure is far less than the radiation absorbed from therapeutic treatment beams, their sometimes significant contribution to cumulative risk can be easily overlooked. Optimizing the conformality of IMRT/IMPT while simultaneously ignoring IGRT dose may result in organs at risk being exposed to a greater proportion of radiation from IGRT than from therapeutic beams. Over a treatment course, cumulative central-axis CBCT effective dose can approach or supersede the amount of radiation absorbed from a single treatment fraction, a theoretical increase of 3% to 5% in mutagenic risk. In select scenarios, this may result in the underprediction of acute and late toxicity risk (such as azoospermia, ovarian dysfunction, or increased lifetime mutagenic risk) in radiation-sensitive organs and patients. Although dependent on variables such as patient age, gender, weight, body habitus, anatomic location, and dose-toxicity thresholds, modifying IGRT use and acquisition parameters such as frequency, imaging modality, beam energy, current, voltage, rotational degree, collimation, field size, reconstruction algorithm, and documentation can reduce exposure, avoid unnecessary toxicity, and achieve doses as low as reasonably achievable, promoting a culture and practice of "gentle IGRT."
New abstract guidelines for Medical Physics Sechopoulos, Ioannis; Boone, John M.; Benedict, Stanley H.
Medical physics (Lancaster),
October 2021, 2021-10-00, 20211001, Letnik:
48, Številka:
10
Journal Article
A new editorial model for Medical Physics Boone, John M.; Benedict, Stanley H.
Medical physics (Lancaster),
February 2021, 2021-Feb, 2021-02-00, 20210201, Letnik:
48, Številka:
2
Journal Article
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