Journal
MEDICAL PHYSICS
Volume 39, Issue 8, Pages 4820-4831Publisher
WILEY
DOI: 10.1118/1.4736423
Keywords
modulated electron radiotherapy; Monte Carlo; IMRT; electron-photon inverse treatment planning
Funding
- NSERC [RG-PIN 298191]
- Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) [MOP 102550]
- Terry Fox Foundation Strategic Initiative for Excellence in Radiation Research for the 21st Century (EIRR21) at the CIHR
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Purpose: Despite promising research in modulated electron radiotherapy (MERT), an applicator to produce modulated electron beams and associated treatment planning software is still not commercially available. This work investigated an optimization process in treatment planning for the McGill few leaf electron collimator (FLEC) MERT delivery device. In addition, the possibility of combining MERT with photon fields was examined to investigate mixed beam radiotherapy. Methods: A FLEC direct aperture optimization (DAO) method, in which FLEC apertures and weights were iteratively optimized was created. The authors evaluated the performance of DAO against our previous technique for generating FLEC plans and with commercially available photon beam optimization algorithms using a basic target and organ at risk geometry. The authors applied the DAO technique on a sarcoma treatment to evaluate clinical parameters. Finally, the authors examined the merit of mixing the DAO generated FLEC electron fields with photon fields to improve the dosimetry of the sarcoma treatment. Results: In relation to the alternative plans, the DAO generated sarcoma MERT plan was competitive in its ability to reduce the dose to OAR but weaker in its ability to highly conform the dose to the target volume. The addition of photon fields improved the quality of the MERT plan in terms of OAR sparing and target conformality. Conclusions: The DAO approach yielded deliverable FLEC-based MERT plans with a limited number of fields. The approach combined with photon optimization added flexibility, where the mutual benefits of each radiation type was used in unison to improve plan quality. (C) 2012 American Association of Physicists in Medicine. [http://dx.doi.org/10.1118/1.4736423]
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available