A planning study of proton therapy dose escalation for non-small cell lung cancer.

In non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC), improving local control through radiotherapy dose escalation might improve survival. However, a photon-based RCT showed increased organ at risk dose exposure and worse overall survival in the dose escalation arm. In this study, intensity-modulated proton therapy plans with dose escalation to the primary tumour were created for 20 NSCLC patients. The mediastinal envelope was delineated to spare structures around the heart. It was possible to increase primary tumour dose up to 74.0 Gy without a significant increase in organ at risk doses and predicted toxicity.

Particle arc therapy: Status and potential.

There is a rising interest in developing and utilizing arc delivery techniques with charged particle beams, e.g., proton, carbon or other ions, for clinical implementation. In this work, perspectives from the European Society for Radiotherapy and Oncology (ESTRO) 2022 physics workshop on particle arc therapy are reported. This outlook provides an outline and prospective vision for the path forward to clinically deliverable proton, carbon, and other ion arc treatments. Through the collaboration among industry, academic, and clinical research and development, the scientific landscape and outlook for particle arc therapy are presented here to help our community understand the physics, radiobiology, and clinical principles. The work is presented in three main sections: (i) treatment planning, (ii) treatment delivery, and (iii) clinical outlook.

A probabilistic evaluation of the Dutch robustness and model-based selection protocols for Head-and-Neck IMPT: A multi-institutional study.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: In the Netherlands, 2 protocols have been standardized for PT among the 3 proton centers: a robustness evaluation (RE) to ensure adequate CTV dose and a model-based selection (MBS) approach for IMPT patient-selection. This multi-institutional study investigates (i) inter-patient and inter-center variation of target dose from the RE protocol and (ii) the robustness of the MBS protocol against treatment errors for a cohort of head-and-neck cancer (HNC) patients treated in the 3 Dutch proton centers. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Clinical treatment plans of 100 HNC patients were evaluated. Polynomial Chaos Expansion (PCE) was used to perform a comprehensive robustness evaluation per plan, enabling the probabilistic evaluation of 100,000 complete fractionated treatments. PCE allowed to derive scenario distributions of clinically relevant dosimetric parameters to assess CTV dose (D99.8%/D0.2%, based on a prior photon plan calibration) and tumour control probabilities (TCP) as well as the evaluation of the dose to OARs and normal tissue complication probabilities (NTCP) per center. RESULTS: For the CTV70.00, doses from the RE protocol were consistent with the clinical plan evaluation metrics used in the 3 centers. For the CTV54.25, D99.8% were consistent with the clinical plan evaluation metrics at center 1 and 2 while, for center 3, a reduction of 1 GyRBE was found on average. This difference did not impact modelled TCP at center 3. Differences between expected and nominal NTCP were below 0.3 percentage point for most patients. CONCLUSION: The standardization of the RE and MBS protocol lead to comparable results in terms of TCP and the NTCPs. Still, significant inter-patient and inter-center variation in dosimetric parameters remained due to clinical practice differences at each institution. The MBS approach is a robust protocol to qualify patients for PT.

Target coverage and organs at risk dose in hypofractionated salvage radiotherapy after prostatectomy.

Background and purpose: Introducing moderately hypofractionated salvage radiotherapy (SRT) following prostatectomy obligates investigation of its effects on clinical target volume (CTV) coverage and organ-at-risk (OAR) doses. This study assessed interfractional volume and dose changes in OARs and CTV in moderately hypofractionated SRT and evaluated the 8-mm planning target volume (PTV) margin. Materials and methods: Twenty patients from the PERYTON-trial were included; 10 received conventional SRT (35 × 2 Gy) and 10 hypofractionated SRT (20 × 3 Gy). OARs were delineated on 539 pre-treatment Cone Beam CT (CBCT) scans to compare interfractional OAR volume changes. CTVs for the hypofractionated group were delineated on 199 CBCTs. Dose distributions with 4 and 6 mm PTV margins were generated using voxel-wise minimum robustness evaluation of the original 8-mm PTV plan, and dose changes were assessed. Results: Median volume changes for bladder and rectum were -26 % and -10 %, respectively. OAR volume changes were not significantly different between the two treatment schedules. The 8-mm PTV margin ensured optimal coverage for prostate bed and vesicle bed CTV (V95 = 100 % in >97 % fractions). However, bladder V60 <25 % was not achieved in 5 % of fractions, and rectum V60 <5 % was unmet in 33 % of fractions. A 6-mm PTV margin resulted in CTV V95 = 100 % in 92 % of fractions for prostate bed, and in 86 % for vesicle bed CTV. Conclusions: Moderately hypofractionated SRT yielded comparable OAR volume changes to conventionally fractionated SRT. Interfractional changes remained acceptable with a PTV margin of 6 mm for prostate bed and 8 mm for vesicle bed.

PET/CT based transformer model for multi-outcome prediction in oropharyngeal cancer.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: To optimize our previously proposed TransRP, a model integrating CNN (convolutional neural network) and ViT (Vision Transformer) designed for recurrence-free survival prediction in oropharyngeal cancer and to extend its application to the prediction of multiple clinical outcomes, including locoregional control (LRC), Distant metastasis-free survival (DMFS) and overall survival (OS). MATERIALS AND METHODS: Data was collected from 400 patients (300 for training and 100 for testing) diagnosed with oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma (OPSCC) who underwent (chemo)radiotherapy at University Medical Center Groningen. Each patient's data comprised pre-treatment PET/CT scans, clinical parameters, and clinical outcome endpoints, namely LRC, DMFS and OS. The prediction performance of TransRP was compared with CNNs when inputting image data only. Additionally, three distinct methods (m1-3) of incorporating clinical predictors into TransRP training and one method (m4) that uses TransRP prediction as one parameter in a clinical Cox model were compared. RESULTS: TransRP achieved higher test C-index values of 0.61, 0.84 and 0.70 than CNNs for LRC, DMFS and OS, respectively. Furthermore, when incorporating TransRP's prediction into a clinical Cox model (m4), a higher C-index of 0.77 for OS was obtained. Compared with a clinical routine risk stratification model of OS, our model, using clinical variables, radiomics and TransRP prediction as predictors, achieved larger separations of survival curves between low, intermediate and high risk groups. CONCLUSION: TransRP outperformed CNN models for all endpoints. Combining clinical data and TransRP prediction in a Cox model achieved better OS prediction.

Proton PBS Planning Techniques, Robustness Evaluation, and OAR Sparing for the Whole-Brain Part of Craniospinal Axis Irradiation.

Proton therapy is a promising modality for craniospinal irradiation (CSI), offering dosimetric advantages over conventional treatments. While significant attention has been paid to spine fields, for the brain fields, only dose reduction to the lens of the eye has been reported. Hence, the objective of this study is to assess the potential gains and feasibility of adopting different treatment planning techniques for the entire brain within the CSI target. To this end, eight previously treated CSI patients underwent retrospective replanning using various techniques: (1) intensity modulated proton therapy (IMPT) optimization, (2) the modification/addition of field directions, and (3) the pre-optimization removal of superficially placed spots. The target coverage robustness was evaluated and dose comparisons for lenses, cochleae, and scalp were conducted, considering potential biological dose increases. The target coverage robustness was maintained across all plans, with minor reductions when superficial spot removal was utilized. Single- and multifield optimization showed comparable target coverage robustness and organ-at-risk sparing. A significant scalp sparing was achieved in adults but only limited in pediatric cases. Superficial spot removal contributed to scalp V30 Gy reduction at the expense of lower coverage robustness in specific cases. Lens sparing benefits from multiple field directions, while cochlear sparing remains impractical. Based on the results, all investigated plan types are deemed clinically adoptable.

Optimal timing of re-planning for head and neck adaptive radiotherapy.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Adaptive radiotherapy (ART) relies on re-planning to correct treatment variations, but the optimal timing of re-planning to account for dose changes in head and neck organs at risk (OARs) is still under investigation. We aimed to find out the optimal timing of re-planning in head and neck ART. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A total of 110 head and neck cancer patients were retrospectively enrolled. A semi auto-segmentation method was applied to obtain the weekly mean dose (Dmean) to OARs. The K-nearest-neighbour method was used for missing data imputation of weekly Dmean. A dose deviation map was built using the planning Dmean and weekly Dmean values and then used to simulate different ART scenarios consisting of 1 to 6 re-plannings. The difference between accumulated Dmean and planning Dmean before re-planning (ΔDmean_acc_noART) and after re-planning (ΔDmean_acc_ART) were evaluated and compared. RESULTS: Among all the OARs, supraglottic showed the largest ΔDmean_acc_noART (1.23 ± 3.13 Gy) and most cases of ΔDmean_acc_noART > 3 Gy (26 patients). The 3rd week is suggested in the optimal timing of re-planning for 10 OARs. For all the organs except arytenoid, 2 re-plannings were able to guarantee the ΔDmean_acc_ART below 3 Gy while the average |ΔDmean_acc_ART| was below 1 Gy. ART scenarios of 2_4, 3_4, 3_5 (week of re-planning separated with "_") were able to guarantee ΔDmean_acc_ART of 99 % of patients below 3 Gy simultaneously for 19 OARs. CONCLUSIONS: The optimal timing of re-planning was suggested for different organs at risk in head and neck adaptive radiotherapy. Generic scenarios of timing and frequency for re-planning can be applied to guarantee the increase of accumulated mean dose within 3 Gy simultaneously for multiple organs.

Measurement of the12C(p,n)12N reaction cross section below 150 MeV.

Objective. Proton therapy currently faces challenges from clinical complications on organs-at-risk due to range uncertainties. To address this issue, positron emission tomography (PET) of the proton-induced11C and15O activity has been used to provide feedback on the proton range. However, this approach is not instantaneous due to the relatively long half-lives of these nuclides. An alternative nuclide,12N (half-life 11 ms), shows promise for real-timein vivoproton range verification. Development of12N imaging requires better knowledge of its production reaction cross section.Approach. The12C(p,n)12N reaction cross section was measured by detecting positron activity of graphite targets irradiated with 66.5, 120, and 150 MeV protons. A pulsed beam delivery with 0.7-2 × 108protons per pulse was used. The positron activity was measured during the beam-off periods using a dual-head Siemens Biograph mCT PET scanner. The12N production was determined from activity time histograms.Main results. The cross section was calculated for 11 energies, ranging from 23.5 to 147 MeV, using information on the experimental setup and beam delivery. Through a comprehensive uncertainty propagation analysis, a statistical uncertainty of 2.6%-5.8% and a systematic uncertainty of 3.3%-4.6% were achieved. Additionally, a comparison between measured and simulated scanner sensitivity showed a scaling factor of 1.25 (±3%). Despite this, there was an improvement in the precision of the cross section measurement compared to values reported by the only previous study.Significance. Short-lived12N imaging is promising for real-timein vivoverification of the proton range to reduce clinical complications in proton therapy. The verification procedure requires experimental knowledge of the12N production cross section for proton energies of clinical importance, to be incorporated in a Monte Carlo framework for12N imaging prediction. This study is the first to achieve a precise measurement of the12C(p,n)12N nuclear cross section for such proton energies.

Feasibility of Monte Carlo dropout-based uncertainty maps to evaluate deep learning-based synthetic CTs for adaptive proton therapy.

BACKGROUND: Deep learning has shown promising results to generate MRI-based synthetic CTs and to enable accurate proton dose calculations on MRIs. For clinical implementation of synthetic CTs, quality assurance tools that verify their quality and reliability are required but still lacking. PURPOSE: This study aims to evaluate the predictive value of uncertainty maps generated with Monte Carlo dropout (MCD) for verifying proton dose calculations on deep-learning-based synthetic CTs (sCTs) derived from MRIs in online adaptive proton therapy. METHODS: Two deep-learning models (DCNN and cycleGAN) were trained for CT image synthesis using 101 paired CT-MR images. sCT images were generated using MCD for each model by performing 10 inferences with activated dropout layers. The final sCT was obtained by averaging the inferred sCTs, while the uncertainty map was obtained from the HU variance corresponding to each voxel of 10 sCTs. The resulting uncertainty maps were compared to the observed HU-, range-, WET-, and dose-error maps between the sCT and planning CT. For range and WET errors, the generated uncertainty maps were projected along the 90-degree angle. To evaluate the dose distribution, a mask based on the 5%-isodose curve was applied to only include voxels along the beam paths. Pearson's correlation coefficients were calculated to determine the correlation between the uncertainty maps and HUs, range, WET, and dose errors. To evaluate the dosimetric accuracy of synthetic CTs, clinical proton treatment plans were recalculated and compared to the pCTs RESULTS: Evaluation of the correlation showed an average of r = 0.92 ± 0.03 and r = 0.92 ± 0.03 for errors between uncertainty-HU, r = 0.66 ± 0.09 and r = 0.62 ± 0.06 between uncertainty-range, r = 0.64 ± 0.06 and r = 0.58 ± 0.07 between uncertainty-WET, and r = 0.65 ± 0.09 and r = 0.67 ± 0.07 between uncertainty and dose difference for DCNN and cycleGAN model, respectively. Dosimetric comparison for target volumes showed an average 3%/3 mm gamma pass rate of 99.76 ± 0.43 (DCNN) and 99.10 ± 1.27 (cycleGAN). CONCLUSION: The observed correlations between uncertainty maps and the various metrics (HU, range, WET, and dose errors) demonstrated the potential of MCD-based uncertainty maps as a reliable QA tool to evaluate the accuracy of deep learning-based sCTs.

Deep learning-based outcome prediction using PET/CT and automatically predicted probability maps of primary tumor in patients with oropharyngeal cancer.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: Recently, deep learning (DL) algorithms showed to be promising in predicting outcomes such as distant metastasis-free survival (DMFS) and overall survival (OS) using pre-treatment imaging in head and neck cancer. Gross Tumor Volume of the primary tumor (GTVp) segmentation is used as an additional channel in the input to DL algorithms to improve model performance. However, the binary segmentation mask of the GTVp directs the focus of the network to the defined tumor region only and uniformly. DL models trained for tumor segmentation have also been used to generate predicted tumor probability maps (TPM) where each pixel value corresponds to the degree of certainty of that pixel to be classified as tumor. The aim of this study was to explore the effect of using TPM as an extra input channel of CT- and PET-based DL prediction models for oropharyngeal cancer (OPC) patients in terms of local control (LC), regional control (RC), DMFS and OS. METHODS: We included 399 OPC patients from our institute that were treated with definitive (chemo)radiation. For each patient, CT and PET scans and GTVp contours, used for radiotherapy treatment planning, were collected. We first trained a previously developed 2.5D DL framework for tumor probability prediction by 5-fold cross validation using 131 patients. Then, a 3D ResNet18 was trained for outcome prediction using the 3D TPM as one of the possible inputs. The endpoints were LC, RC, DMFS, and OS. We performed 3-fold cross validation on 168 patients for each endpoint using different combinations of image modalities as input. The final prediction in the test set (100) was obtained by averaging the predictions of the 3-fold models. The C-index was used to evaluate the discriminative performance of the models. RESULTS: The models trained replacing the GTVp contours with the TPM achieved the highest C-indexes for LC (0.74) and RC (0.60) prediction. For OS, using the TPM or the GTVp as additional image modality resulted in comparable C-indexes (0.72 and 0.74). CONCLUSIONS: Adding predicted TPMs instead of GTVp contours as an additional input channel for DL-based outcome prediction models improved model performance for LC and RC.

Comparison of computed tomography image features extracted by radiomics, self-supervised learning and end-to-end deep learning for outcome prediction of oropharyngeal cancer.

Background and purpose: To compare the prediction performance of image features of computed tomography (CT) images extracted by radiomics, self-supervised learning and end-to-end deep learning for local control (LC), regional control (RC), locoregional control (LRC), distant metastasis-free survival (DMFS), tumor-specific survival (TSS), overall survival (OS) and disease-free survival (DFS) of oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma (OPSCC) patients after (chemo)radiotherapy. Methods and materials: The OPC-Radiomics dataset was used for model development and independent internal testing and the UMCG-OPC set for external testing. Image features were extracted from the Gross Tumor Volume contours of the primary tumor (GTVt) regions in CT scans when using radiomics or a self-supervised learning-based method (autoencoder). Clinical and combined (radiomics, autoencoder or end-to-end) models were built using multivariable Cox proportional-hazard analysis with clinical features only and both clinical and image features for LC, RC, LRC, DMFS, TSS, OS and DFS prediction, respectively. Results: In the internal test set, combined autoencoder models performed better than clinical models and combined radiomics models for LC, RC, LRC, DMFS, TSS and DFS prediction (largest improvements in C-index: 0.91 vs. 0.76 in RC and 0.74 vs. 0.60 in DMFS). In the external test set, combined radiomics models performed better than clinical and combined autoencoder models for all endpoints (largest improvements in LC, 0.82 vs. 0.71). Furthermore, combined models performed better in risk stratification than clinical models and showed good calibration for most endpoints. Conclusions: Image features extracted using self-supervised learning showed best internal prediction performance while radiomics features have better external generalizability.

Case-Matched Outcomes of Proton Beam and Intensity-Modulated Radiation Therapy for Localized Prostate Cancer.

Purpose: Although both intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) and proton beam therapy (PBT) offer effective long-term disease control for localized prostate cancer (PCa), there are limited data directly comparing the 2 modalities. Methods: The data from 334 patients treated with conventionally fractionated (79.2 GyRBE in 44 fractions) PBT or IMRT were retrospectively analyzed. Propensity score matching was used to balance factors associated with biochemical failure-free survival (BFFS). Age, race, and comorbidities (not BFFS associates) remained imbalanced after matching. Univariable and covariate-adjusted multivariable (MVA) Cox regression models were used to determine if modality affected BFFS. Results: Of 334 patients, 176 (52.7%) were included in the matched cohort with exact matching to National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) risk group. With a median follow-up time of 9.0 years (interquartile range [IQR]: 7.8-10.2 years), long-term BFFS was similar between the IMRT and PBT matched arms with 8-year estimates of 85% (95% CI: 76%-91%) and 91% (95% CI: 82%-96%, P = .39), respectively. On MVA, modality was not significantly associated with BFFS in both the unmatched (hazard ratio [HR] = 0.75, 95% CI: 0.35-1.63, P = .47) and matched (HR = 0.87, 95% CI: 0.33-2.33, P = .78) cohorts. Prostate cancer-specific survival (PCSS) and overall survival (OS) were also similar (P > .05). However, in an unmatched analysis, the PBT arm had significantly fewer incidences of secondary cancers within the irradiated field (0.6%, 95% CI: 0.0%-3.1% versus 4.5%, 95% CI: 1.8%-9.0%, P = .028). Conclusions: Both PBT and IMRT offer excellent long-term disease control for PCa, with no significant differences between the 2 modalities in BFFS, PCSS, and OS in matched patients. In the unmatched cohort, fewer incidences of secondary malignancy were noted in the PBT group; however, owing to overall low incidence of secondary cancer and imbalanced patient characteristics between the 2 groups, these data are strictly hypothesis generating and require further investigation.

Technical note: Evaluation of deep learning based synthetic CTs clinical readiness for dose and NTCP driven head and neck adaptive proton therapy.

BACKGROUND: Adaptive proton therapy workflows rely on accurate imaging throughout the treatment course. Our centre currently utilizes weekly repeat CTs (rCTs) for treatment monitoring and plan adaptations. However, deep learning-based methods have recently shown to successfully correct CBCT images, which suffer from severe imaging artifacts, and generate high quality synthetic CT (sCT) images which enable CBCT-based proton dose calculations. PURPOSE: To compare daily CBCT-based sCT images to planning CTs (pCT) and rCTs of head and neck (HN) cancer patients to investigate the dosimetric accuracy of CBCT-based sCTs in a scenario mimicking actual clinical practice. METHODS: Data of 56 HN cancer patients, previously treated with proton therapy was used to generate 1.962 sCT images, using a previously developed and trained deep convolutional neural network. Clinical IMPT treatment plans were recalculated on the pCT, weekly rCTs and daily sCTs. The dosimetric accuracy of sCTs was compared to same day rCTs and the initial planning CT. As a reference, rCTs were also compared to pCTs. The dose difference between sCTs and rCTs/pCT was quantified by calculating the D98 difference for target volumes and Dmean difference for organs-at-risk. To investigate the clinical relevancy of possible dose differences, NTCP values were calculated for dysphagia and xerostomia. RESULTS: For target volumes, only minor dose differences were found for sCT versus rCT and sCT versus pCT, with dose differences mostly within ±1.5%. Larger dose differences were observed in OARs, where a general shift towards positive differences was found, with the largest difference in the left parotid gland. Delta NTCP values for grade 2 dysphagia and xerostomia were within ±2.5% for 90% of the sCTs. CONCLUSIONS: Target doses showed high similarity between rCTs and sCTs. Further investigations are required to identify the origin of the dose differences at OAR levels and its relevance in clinical decision making.

Assessment of residual geometrical errors of clinical target volumes and their impact on dose accumulation for head and neck radiotherapy.

PURPOSE: To assess the residual geometrical errors (dr) and their impact on the clinical target volumes (CTV) dose coverage for head and neck cancer (HNC) proton therapy patients. METHODS: We analysed 28 HNC patients treated with 70 Gy (RBE) and 54.25 Gy (RBE) to the therapeutic CTV70 and prophylactic CTV54.25, respectively. Daily cone beam CTs were converted to high quality synthetic CTs (sCTs). The CTVs from the nominal CT were propagated to the corresponding sCTs using a hybrid deformable image registration (propagated CTVs) in RayStation 11B. For 11 patients, all propagated CTVs were reviewed by our HNC radiation oncologist (physician corrected CTVs). The residual geometrical error dr was quantified as a function of the daily CTVs volume overlap with the nominal plan CTV. The errors dr(propagated CTVs) and dr(physician corrected CTVs) and the difference in dice similarity coefficients (ΔDSC) were determined. Using clinical plans, dose coverage and the tumor control probability (TCP) for the nominal, accumulated and voxel-wise minimum scenarios were determined. RESULTS: The difference in the residual geometrical error dr (propagated CTVs - physician corrected CTVs) and mean DSC (|ΔDSC|mean) were minor: Δdr(CTV70) = 0.16 mm, Δdr(CTV54.25) = 0.26 mm, |ΔDSC|mean < 0.9%. For all 28 patients, dr(CTV70) = 1.91 mm and dr(CTV54.25) = 1.90 mm. However, CTV54.25 above and below the cricoid cartilage differed substantially (1.00 mm c.f. 3.93 mm). The CTV54.25 coverage below the cricoid was then almost always lower, although the TCP of the accumulated dose was higher than the TCP of the voxel-wise minimum dose. CONCLUSIONS: Setup uncertainty setting of 2 mm is possible. The feasibility of using propagated CTVs for error determination is demonstrated.

Dose evaluation of inter- and intra-fraction prostate motion in extremely hypofractionated intensity-modulated proton therapy for prostate cancer.

Inter- and intra-fractional prostate motion can deteriorate the dose distribution in extremely hypofractionated intensity-modulated proton therapy. We used verification CTs and prostate motion data calculated from 1024 intra-fractional prostate motion records to develop a voxel-wise based 4-dimensional method, which had a time resolution of 1 s, to assess the dose impact of prostate motion. An example of 100 fractional simulations revealed that motion had minimal impact on planning dose, the accumulated dose in 95 % of the scenarios fulfilled the clinical goals for target coverage (D95 > 37.5 Gy). This method can serve as a complementary measure in clinical setting to guarantee plan quality.

Partitioning of discrete proton arcs into interlaced subplans can bring proton arc advances to existing proton facilities.

BACKGROUND: Proton arcs have shown potential to reduce the dose to organs at risks (OARs) by delivering the protons from many different directions. While most previous studies have been focused on dynamic arcs (delivery during rotation), an alternative approach is discrete arcs, where step-and-shoot delivery is used over a large number of beam directions. The major advantage of discrete arcs is that they can be delivered at existing proton facilities. However, this advantage comes at the expense of longer treatment times. PURPOSE: To exploit the dosimetric advantages of proton arcs, while achieving reasonable delivery times, we propose a partitioning approach where discrete arc plans are split into subplans to be delivered over different fractions in the treatment course. METHODS: For three oropharyngeal cancer patients, four different arc plans have been created and compared to the corresponding clinical IMPT plan. The treatment plans are all planned to be delivered in 35 fractions, but with different delivery approaches over the fractions. The first arc plan (1×30) has 30 directions to be delivered every fraction, while the others are partitioned into subplans with 10 and 6 beam directions, each to be delivered every third (3×10), fifth fraction (5×6), or seventh fraction (7×10). All plans are assessed with respect to delivery time, target robustness over the treatment course, doses to OARs and NTCP for dysphagia and xerostomia. RESULTS: The delivery time (including an additional delay of 30 s between the discrete directions to simulate manual interaction with the treatment control system) is reduced from on average 25.2 min for the 1×30 plan to 9.2 min for the 3×10 and 7×10 plans and 5.7 min for the 5×6 plans. The delivery time for the IMPT plan is 7.9 min. When accounting for the combination of delivery time, target robustness, OAR sparing, and NTCP reduction, the plans with 10 directions in each fraction are the preferred choice. Both the 3×10 and 7×10 plans show improved target robustness compared to the 1×30 plans, while keeping OAR doses and NTCP values at almost as low levels as for the 1×30 plans. For all patients the NTCP values for dysphagia are lower for the partitioned plans with 10 directions compared to the IMPT plans. NTCP reduction for xerostomia compared to IMPT is seen in two of the three patients. The best results are seen for the first patient, where the NTCP reductions for the 7×10 plan are 1.6 p.p. (grade 2 xerostomia) and 1.5 p.p. (grade 2 dysphagia). The corresponding NTCP reductions for the 1×30 plan are 2.7 p.p. (xerostomia, grade 2) and 2.0 p.p. (dysphagia, grade 2). CONCLUSIONS: Discrete proton arcs can be implemented at any proton facility with reasonable treatment times using a partitioning approach. The technique also makes the proton arc treatments more robust to changes in the patient anatomy.

Simple immobilization for stereotactic radiotherapy aimed at pelvic metastases.

Stereotactic body radiotherapy (SBRT) is increasingly applied for pelvic oligometastases of prostate cancer, and currently no simple immobilization method is available for cone beam computed tomography (CBCT)-guided treatment. We assessed patient set-up and intrafraction motion using simple immobilization during CBCT-guided pelvic SBRT. Forty patients were immobilized with basic arm- head- and knee support and either a thermoplastic cushion or a foam cushion. Analysis of 454 CBCTs showed mean intrafraction translation <3.0 mm in 94% of fractions and mean intrafraction rotation <1.5° in 95% of fractions. Therefore, simple immobilization ensured stable patient positioning during CBCT-guided pelvic SBRT.

An efficient strategy to select head and neck cancer patients for adaptive radiotherapy.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Adaptive radiotherapy (ART) is workload intensive but only benefits a subgroup of patients. We aimed to develop an efficient strategy to select candidates for ART in the first two weeks of head and neck cancer (HNC) radiotherapy. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This study retrospectively enrolled 110 HNC patients who underwent modern photon radiotherapy with at least 5 weekly in-treatment re-scan CTs. A semi auto-segmentation method was applied to obtain the weekly mean dose (Dmean) to OARs. A comprehensive NTCP-profile was applied to obtain NTCP's. The difference between planning and actual values of Dmean (ΔDmean) and dichotomized difference of clinical relevance (BIOΔNTCP) were used for modelling to determine the cut-off maximum ΔDmean of OARs in week 1 and 2 (maxΔDmean_1 and maxΔDmean_2). Four strategies to select candidates for ART, using cut-off maxΔDmean were compared. RESULTS: The Spearman's rank correlation test showed significant positive correlation between maxΔDmean and BIOΔNTCP (p-value <0.001). For major BIOΔNTCP (>5%) of acute and late toxicity, 10.9% and 4.5% of the patients were true candidates for ART. Strategy C using both cut-off maxΔDmean_1 (3.01 and 5.14 Gy) and cut-off maxΔDmean_2 (3.41 and 5.30 Gy) showed the best sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative predictive values (0.92, 0.82, 0.38, 0.99 for acute toxicity and 1.00, 0.92, 0.38, 1.00 for late toxicity, respectively). CONCLUSIONS: We propose an efficient selection strategy for ART that is able to classify the subgroup of patients with >5% BIOΔNTCP for late toxicity using imaging in the first two treatment weeks.

SynthRAD2023 Grand Challenge dataset: Generating synthetic CT for radiotherapy.

PURPOSE: Medical imaging has become increasingly important in diagnosing and treating oncological patients, particularly in radiotherapy. Recent advances in synthetic computed tomography (sCT) generation have increased interest in public challenges to provide data and evaluation metrics for comparing different approaches openly. This paper describes a dataset of brain and pelvis computed tomography (CT) images with rigidly registered cone-beam CT (CBCT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) images to facilitate the development and evaluation of sCT generation for radiotherapy planning. ACQUISITION AND VALIDATION METHODS: The dataset consists of CT, CBCT, and MRI of 540 brains and 540 pelvic radiotherapy patients from three Dutch university medical centers. Subjects' ages ranged from 3 to 93 years, with a mean age of 60. Various scanner models and acquisition settings were used across patients from the three data-providing centers. Details are available in a comma separated value files provided with the datasets. DATA FORMAT AND USAGE NOTES: The data is available on Zenodo (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7260704, https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7868168) under the SynthRAD2023 collection. The images for each subject are available in nifti format. POTENTIAL APPLICATIONS: This dataset will enable the evaluation and development of image synthesis algorithms for radiotherapy purposes on a realistic multi-center dataset with varying acquisition protocols. Synthetic CT generation has numerous applications in radiation therapy, including diagnosis, treatment planning, treatment monitoring, and surgical planning.

PTV-based VMAT vs. robust IMPT for head-and-neck cancer: A probabilistic uncertainty analysis of clinical plan evaluation with the Dutch model-based selection.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: In the Netherlands, head-and-neck cancer (HNC) patients are referred for proton therapy (PT) through model-based selection (MBS). However, treatment errors may compromise adequate CTV dose. Our aims are: (i) to derive probabilistic plan evaluation metrics on the CTV consistent with clinical metrics; (ii) to evaluate plan consistency between photon (VMAT) and proton (IMPT) planning in terms of CTV dose iso-effectiveness and (iii) to assess the robustness of the OAR doses and of the risk toxicities involved in the MBS. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Sixty HNC plans (30 IMPT/30 VMAT) were included. A robustness evaluation with 100,000 treatment scenarios per plan was performed using Polynomial Chaos Expansion (PCE). PCE was applied to determine scenario distributions of clinically relevant dosimetric parameters, which were compared between the 2 modalities. Finally, PCE-based probabilistic dose parameters were derived and compared to clinical PTV-based photon and voxel-wise proton evaluation metrics. RESULTS: Probabilistic dose to near-minimum volume v = 99.8% for the CTV correlated best with clinical PTV-D98% and VWmin-D98%,CTV doses for VMAT and IMPT respectively. IMPT showed slightly higher nominal CTV doses, with an average increase of 0.8 GyRBE in the median of the D99.8%,CTV distribution. Most patients qualified for IMPT through the dysphagia grade II model, for which an average NTCP gain of 10.5 percentages points (%-point) was found. For all complications, uncertainties resulted in moderate NTCP spreads lower than 3 p.p. on average for both modalities. CONCLUSION: Despite the differences between photon and proton planning, the comparison between PTV-based VMAT and robust IMPT is consistent. Treatment errors had a moderate impact on NTCPs, showing that the nominal plans are a good estimator to qualify patients for PT.