GEOMETRIC ALGORITHMS FOR STATIC LEAF SEQUENCING PROBLEMS IN RADIATION THERAPY

2004 ◽  
Vol 14 (04n05) ◽  
pp. 311-339 ◽  
Author(s):  
DANNY Z. CHEN ◽  
XIAOBO S. HU ◽  
SHUANG (SEAN) LUAN ◽  
CHAO WANG ◽  
XIAODONG WU

The static leaf sequencing (SLS) problem arises in radiation therapy for cancer treatments, aiming to accomplish the delivery of a radiation prescription to a target tumor in the minimum amount of delivery time. Geometrically, the SLS problem can be formulated as a 3-D partition problem for which the 2-D problem of partitioning a polygonal domain (possibly with holes) into a minimum set of monotone polygons is a special case. In this paper, we present new geometric algorithms for a basic case of the 3-D SLS problem (which is also of clinical value) and for the general 3-D SLS problem. Our basic 3-D SLS algorithm, based on new geometric observations, produces guaranteed optimal quality solutions using O(1) Steiner points in polynomial time; the previously best known basic 3-D SLS algorithm gives optimal outputs only for the case without considering any Steiner points, and its time bound involves a multiplicative factor of a factorial function of the input. Our general 3-D SLS algorithm is based on our basic 3-D SLS algorithm and a polynomial time algorithm for partitioning a polygonal domain (possibly with holes) into a minimum set of x-monotone polygons, and has a fast running time. Experiments of our SLS algorithms and software in clinical settings have shown substantial improvements over the current most popular commercial treatment planning system and the most well-known SLS algorithm in medical literature. The radiotherapy plans produced by our software not only take significantly shorter delivery times, but also have a much better treatment quality. This proves the feasibility of our software and has led to its clinical applications at the Department of Radiation Oncology at the University of Maryland Medical Center. Some of our techniques and geometric procedures (e.g., for partitioning a polygonal domain into a minimum set of x-monotone polygons) are interesting in their own right.

2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Vanessa Da Silva Mendes ◽  
Lukas Nierer ◽  
Minglun Li ◽  
Stefanie Corradini ◽  
Michael Reiner ◽  
...  

Abstract Background The aim of this study was to evaluate and compare the performance of intensity modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) plans, planned for low-field strength magnetic resonance (MR) guided linear accelerator (linac) delivery (labelled IMRT MRL plans), and clinical conventional volumetric modulated arc therapy (VMAT) plans, for the treatment of prostate cancer (PCa). Both plans used the original planning target volume (PTV) margins. Additionally, the potential dosimetric benefits of MR-guidance were estimated, by creating IMRT MRL plans using smaller PTV margins. Materials and methods 20 PCa patients previously treated with conventional VMAT were considered. For each patient, two different IMRT MRL plans using the low-field MR-linac treatment planning system were created: one with original (orig.) PTV margins and the other with reduced (red.) PTV margins. Dose indices related to target coverage, as well as dose-volume histogram (DVH) parameters for the target and organs at risk (OAR) were compared. Additionally, the estimated treatment delivery times and the number of monitor units (MU) of each plan were evaluated. Results The dose distribution in the high dose region and the target volume DVH parameters (D98%, D50%, D2% and V95%) were similar for all three types of treatment plans, with deviations below 1% in most cases. Both IMRT MRL plans (orig. and red. PTV margins) showed similar homogeneity indices (HI), however worse values for the conformity index (CI) were also found when compared to VMAT. The IMRT MRL plans showed similar OAR sparing when the orig. PTV margins were used but a significantly better sparing was feasible when red. PTV margins were applied. Higher number of MU and longer predicted treatment delivery times were seen for both IMRT MRL plans. Conclusions A comparable plan quality between VMAT and IMRT MRL plans was achieved, when applying the same PTV margin. However, online MR-guided adaptive radiotherapy allows for a reduction of PTV margins. With a red. PTV margin, better sparing of the surrounding tissues can be achieved, while maintaining adequate target coverage. Nonetheless, longer treatment delivery times, characteristic for the IMRT technique, have to be expected.


2014 ◽  
Vol 2014 ◽  
pp. 1-7 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. Abdul Haneefa ◽  
K. K. Shakir ◽  
A. Siddhartha ◽  
T. Siji Cyriac ◽  
M. M. Musthafa ◽  
...  

Dosimetric studies of mixed field photon beam intensity modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) for prostate cancer using pencil beam (PB) and collapsed cone convolution (CCC) algorithms using Oncentra MasterPlan treatment planning system (v. 4.3) are investigated in this study. Three different plans were generated using 6 MV, 15 MV, and mixed beam (both 6 and 15 MV). Fifteen patients with two sets of plans were generated: one by using PB and the other by using CCC for the same planning parameters and constraints except the beam energy. For each patient’s plan of high energy photons, one set of photoneutron measurements using solid state neutron track detector (SSNTD) was taken for this study. Mean percentage of V66 Gy in the rectum is 18.55±2.8, 14.58±2.1, and 16.77±4.7 for 6 MV, 15 MV, and mixed-energy plans, respectively. Mean percentage of V66 Gy in bladder is 16.54±2.1, 17.42±2.1, and 16.94±41.9 for 6 MV, 15 MV, and mixed-energy plans, respectively. Mixed fields neutron contribution at the beam entrance surface is 45.62% less than at 15 MV photon beam. Our result shows that, with negligible neutron contributions, mixed field IMRT has considerable dosimetric advantage.


2006 ◽  
Vol 92 (2) ◽  
pp. 118-123 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raffaella Cambria ◽  
Federica Cattani ◽  
Mario Ciocca ◽  
Cristina Garibaldi ◽  
Giampiero Tosi ◽  
...  

Aims and Background The importance of optimal daily patient positioning has been stressed in order to ensure treatment reproducibility and gain in accuracy and precision. We report our data on the 3D setup uncertainty during radiation therapy for prostate cancer using the CT image fusion technique. Methods Ten consecutive patients scheduled for radiation therapy for prostate cancer underwent 5 prone position CT scans using an individualized immobilization cast. These different setups were analyzed using the image fusion module of the ERGO 3D-Line Medical System (Milan, Italy) treatment planning system. The isocenter and the body marker displacements were measured. Results The 3D isocenter dislocations were quantified: systematic error was Σ3D = 3.9 mm, whereas random error was σ3D = 1 mm. The mean of the minimum displacements was 0.2 ± 1 mm showing that the immobilization device used allows an accurate setup to be obtained. Single direction errors were also measured showing systematic errors, ΣAP = 2.6 mm, ΣLL = 0.6 mm, ΣSI = 3 mm in the anterior-posterior, latero-lateral, superior-inferior direction, respectively. Related random errors were σAP = 1 mm, σLL = 0.6 mm, σSI = 1.2 mm. In terms of accuracy, our uncertainties are similar to those reported in the literature. Conclusions By applying the CT image fusion technique, a 3D study on setup accuracy was performed. We demonstrated that the use of an individualized immobilization system for prostate treatment is adequate to obtain good setup accuracy, as long as a high-quality positioning control method, such as the stereoscopic X-ray-based positioning system, is used.


2013 ◽  
Vol 29 ◽  
pp. e19
Author(s):  
M. Vautrin ◽  
M. Benkebil ◽  
Y. Prezado ◽  
I. Martínez-Rovirad ◽  
H. Elleaumea ◽  
...  

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