Feasibility of delivered dose reconstruction for MR-guided SBRT of pancreatic tumors with fast, real-time 3D cine MRI

Background and purpose: In MR-guided SBRT of pancreatic cancer, intrafraction motion is typically monitored with (interleaved) 2D cine MRI. However, tumor surroundings are often not fully captured in these images, and motion might be distorted by through-plane movement. In this study, the feasibility of highly accelerated 3D cine MRI to reconstruct the delivered dose during MR-guided SBRT was assessed. Materials and methods: A 3D cine MRI sequence was developed for fast, time-resolved 4D imaging, featuring a low spatial resolution that allows for rapid volumetric imaging at 430 ms. The 3D cines were acquired during the entire beam-on time of 23 fractions of online adaptive MR-guided SBRT for pancreatic tumors on a 1.5 T MR-Linac. A 3D deformation vector field (DVF) was extracted for every cine dynamic using deformable image registration. Next, these DVFs were used to warp the partial dose delivered in the time interval between consecutive cine acquisitions. The warped dose plans were summed to obtain a total delivered dose. The delivered dose was also calculated under various motion correction strategies. Key DVH parameters of the GTV, duodenum, small bowel and stomach were extracted from the delivered dose and compared to the planned dose. The uncertainty of the calculated DVFs was determined with the inverse consistency error (ICE) in the high-dose regions.Results: The mean (SD) relative (ratio delivered/planned) D99% of the GTV was 0.94 (0.06), and the mean (SD) relative D0.5cc of the duodenum, small bowel, and stomach were respectively 0.98 (0.04), 1.00 (0.07), and 0.98 (0.06). In the fractions with the lowest delivered tumor coverage, it was found that significant lateral drifts had occurred. The DVFs used for dose warping had a low uncertainty with a mean (SD) ICE of 0.65 (0.07) mm.Conclusion: We employed a fast, real-time 3D cine MRI sequence for dose reconstruction in the upper abdomen, and demonstrated that accurate DVFs, acquired directly from these images, can be used for dose warping. The reconstructed delivered dose showed only a modest degradation of tumor coverage, mostly attainable to baseline drifts. This emphasizes the need for motion monitoring and development of intrafraction treatment adaptation solutions, such as baseline drift corrections.(c) 2023 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V. Radiotherapy and Oncology 182 (2023) 1-7 This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

Automated summary

This study assessed the feasibility of using highly accelerated 3D cine MRI to reconstruct the delivered dose during MR-guided SBRT for pancreatic cancer. The results showed that the deformable image registration technique using the 3D cine MRI images was accurate and reliable for dose warping and reconstruction.