Intensity-modulated radiotherapy of breast cancer using direct aperture optimization

Background and purpose: To design a clinically reliable and efficient step-and-shoot IMRT delivery technique for the treatment of breast cancer using direct aperture optimization (DAO). Using DAO, segments are created and optimized within the same optimization process. Patients and methods: The DAO technique implemented in the Pinnacle treatment planning system, which is called direct machine parameter optimization (DMPO), was used to generate IMRT plans for twelve breast cancer patients. The prescribed dose was 50 Gy. Two DMPO plans were generated. The first approach uses DMPO only; the second technique combines DMPO with two predefined segments (DMPOsegm), having shapes identical to the conventional tangential fields. The weight of these predefined segments is optimized simultaneously with DMPO. The DMPO plans were compared with normal two-step (TS) IMRT, creating segments after optimizing the intensity. Results: Dose homogeneity within the target volume was 4.8 +/- 0.6, 4.3 +/- 0.5 and 3.8 +/- 0.5 Gy for the TS, DMPO and DMPOsegm plans, respectively. Comparing the IMRT plans with an idealized dose distribution obtained using only beamlet optimization, the degradation of the dose distribution was less for the DMPO plans compared with the two-step IMRT approach. Furthermore, this degradation was similar for all patients, while for the two-step IMRT approach it was patient specific. Conclusions: An efficient step-and-shoot IMRT solution was developed for the treatment of breast cancer using DMPO combined with two predefined segments. (c) 2006 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.