Image-guided patient positioning: If one cannot correct for rotational offsets in external-beam radiotherapy setup, how should rotational offsets be managed?

When setting up patients via image-guided positioning for external-beam radiotherapy, one can often determine the rotational corrections needed for optimal alignment, but once measured, they are not always applied. However, in rigid-body setup calculations the optimal translational component of the setup correction will be different depending on whether rotations are included or excluded from the correction procedure. Furthermore, if rotations go uncorrected then the optimal translation becomes dependent on the relative locations of the registration landmarks, the treatment site, and the rotational axes. If one is not going to make rotational adjustments to the patient position, then two guidelines should be followed: (1) the registration landmarks should closely demarcate the treatment site, and (2) rotational degrees of freedom should not be included in the calculation of setup adjustments. (c) 2007 American Association of Physicists in Medicine.