Impact of field number and beam angle on functional image-guided lung cancer radiotherapy planning.

To investigate the effect of beam angles and field number on functionally-guided intensity modulated radiotherapy (IMRT) normal lung avoidance treatment plans that incorporate hyperpolarised helium-3 magnetic resonance imaging (3He MRI) ventilation data. Eight non-small cell lung cancer patients had pre-treatment 3He MRI that was registered to inspiration breath-hold radiotherapy planning computed tomography. IMRT plans that minimised the volume of total lung receiving ⩾20 Gy (V20) were compared with plans that minimised 3He MRI defined functional lung receiving ⩾20 Gy (fV20). Coplanar IMRT plans using 5-field manually optimised beam angles and 9-field equidistant plans were also evaluated. For each pair of plans, the Wilcoxon signed ranks test was used to compare fV20 and the percentage of planning target volume (PTV) receiving 90% of the prescription dose (PTV90). Incorporation of 3He MRI led to median reductions in fV20 of 1.3% (range: 0.2-9.3%; p = 0.04) and 0.2% (range: 0 to 4.1%; p = 0.012) for 5- and 9-field arrangements, respectively. There was no clinically significant difference in target coverage. Functionally-guided IMRT plans incorporating hyperpolarised 3He MRI information can reduce the dose received by ventilated lung without comprising PTV coverage. The effect was greater for optimised beam angles rather than uniformly spaced fields.

Dosimetric evaluation of inspiration and expiration breath-hold for intensity-modulated radiotherapy planning of non-small cell lung cancer.

The purpose of this study was to compare target coverage and lung tissue sparing between inspiration and expiration breath-hold intensity-modulated radiotherapy (IMRT) plans for patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). In a prospective study, seven NSCLC patients gave written consent to undergo both moderate deep inspiration and end-expiration breath-hold computed tomography (CT), which were used to generate five-field IMRT plans. Dose was calculated with a scatter and an inhomogeneity correction algorithm. The percentage of the planning target volume (PTV) receiving 90% of the prescription dose (PTV(90)), the volume of total lung receiving >or=10 Gy (V(10)) and >or=20 Gy (V(20)) and the mean lung dose (MLD) were compared by the Student's paired t-test. Compared with the expiration plans, the mean +/- SD reductions for V(10), V(20) and MLD on the inspiration plans were 4.0 +/- 3.7% (p = 0.031), 2.5 +/- 2.3% (p = 0.028) and 1.1 +/- 0.7 Gy (p = 0.007), respectively. Conversely, a mean difference of 1.1 +/- 1.1% (p = 0.044) in PTV(90) was demonstrated in favour of expiration. When using IMRT, inspiration breath-hold can reduce the dose to normal lung tissue while expiration breath-hold can improve the target coverage. The improved lung sparing at inspiration may outweigh the modest improvements in target coverage at expiration.