Incorporating patient breathing variability into a stochastic model of dose deposition for stereotactic body radiation therapy

Tumor control probability reduction in gated radiotherapy of non-small cell lung cancers: a feasibility study

We studied the feasibility of evaluating tumor control probability (TCP) reductions for tumor motion beyond planned gated radiotherapy margins. Tumor motion was determined from cone‐beam CT projections acquired for patient setup, intrafraction respiratory traces, and 4D CTs for five non‐small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients treated with gated radiotherapy. Tumors were subdivided into 1 mm sections whose positions and doses were determined for each beam‐on time point. (The dose calculation model was verified with motion phantom measurements.) The calculated dose distributions were used to generate the treatment TCPs for each patient. The plan TCPs were calculated from the treatment planning dose distributions. The treatment TCPs were compared to the plan TCPs for various models and parameters. Calculated doses matched phantom measurements within 0.3% for up to 3 cm of motion. TCP reductions for excess motion greater than 5 mm ranged from 1.7% to 11.9%, depending on model parameters, and were as high as 48.6% for model parameters that simulated an individual patient. Repeating the worst case motion for all fractions increased TCP reductions by a factor of 2 to 3, while hypofractionation decreased these reductions by as much as a factor of 3. Treatment motion exceeding gating margins by more than 5 mm can lead to considerable TCP reductions. Appropriate margins for excess motion are recommended, unless applying daily tumor motion verification and adjusting the gating window.

PACS numbers: 87.55.dk, 87.57.Q‐

Quantifying variability of intrafractional target motion in stereotactic body radiotherapy for lung cancers

In lung stereotactic body radiotherapy (SBRT), variability of intrafractional target motion can negate the potential benefits of four‐dimensional (4D) treatment planning that aims to account for the dosimetric impacts of organ motion. This study used tumor motion data obtained from CyberKnife SBRT treatments to quantify the reproducibility of probability motion function (pmf) of 37 lung tumors. The reproducibility of pmf was analyzed with and without subtracting the intrafractional baseline drift from the original motion data. Statistics of intrafractional tumor motion including baseline drift, target motion amplitude and period, were also calculated. The target motion amplitude significantly correlates with variations (1 SD) of motion amplitude and baseline drift. Significant correlation between treatment time and variations (1 SD) of motion amplitude was observed in anterior‐posterior (AP) motion, but not in craniocaudal (CC) and left‐right (LR) motion. The magnitude of AP and LR baseline drifts significantly depend on the treatment time, while the CC baseline drift does not. The reproducibility of pmf as a function of time can be well described by a two‐exponential function with a fast and slow component. The reproducibility of pmf is over 60% for the CC motion and over 50% for the AP and LR motions when baseline variations were subtracted from the original motion data. It decreases to just over 30% for the CC motion and about 20% for the AP and LR motion, otherwise. 4D planning has obvious limitations due to variability of intrafractional target motion. To account for potential risks of overdosing critical organs, it is important to simulate the dosimetric impacts of intra‐ and interfractional baseline drift using population statistics obtained from SBRT treatments.

PACS number: 87.55.‐x