GammaKnife versus VMAT radiosurgery plan quality for many brain metastases.

The purpose of this work was to compare dose distributions between two radiosurgery modalities, single-isocenter volumetric modulated arc therapy (VMAT), and GammaKnife Perfexion (GK), in the treatment of a large number (≥7) of brain metastases. Twelve patients with 103 brain metastases were analyzed. The median number of targets per patient was 8 (range: 7-14). GK plans were compared to noncoplanar VMAT plans using both 6-MV flattening filter-free (FFF) and 10-MV FFF modes. Parameters analyzed included radiation therapy oncology group conformity index (CI), 12, 6, and 3 Gy isodose volumes (V12 Gy, V6 Gy, V3 Gy), mean and maximum hippocampal dose, and maximum skin dose. There were statistically significant differences in CI (2.5 ± 1.6 vs 1.6 ± 0.8 and 1.7 ± 0.9, P < 0.001, P < 0.001), V12 Gy (2.8 ± 6.1 cc vs 3.0 ± 5.2 cc and 3.1 ± 5.4 cc, P = 0.003, P < 0.001), and V3 Gy (323.0 ± 294.8 cc vs, 880.1 ± 369.1 cc and 937.9 ±  vs 361.9 cc, P = 0.005, P = 0.001) between GK versus both 6-MV FFF and 10-MV FFF. No significant differences existed for maximum hippocampal or skin doses. In conclusion, highly optimized VMAT produced improved conformity at the expense of a higher V12 Gy and V3 Gy volume when compared with highly optimized GK.

SPECT/CT image-based dosimetry for Yttrium-90 radionuclide therapy: Application to treatment response.

This work demonstrates the efficacy of voxel-based 90 Y microsphere dosimetry utilizing post-therapy SPECT/CT imaging and applies it to the prediction of treatment response for the management of patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). A 90 Y microsphere dosimetry navigator (RapidSphere) within a commercial platform (Velocity, Varian Medical Systems) was demonstrated for three microsphere cases that were imaged using optimized bremsstrahlung SPECT/CT. For each case, the 90 Y SPECT/CT was registered to follow-up diagnostic MR/CT using deformable image registration. The voxel-based dose distribution was computed using the local deposition method with known injected activity. The system allowed the visualization of the isodose distributions on any of the registered image datasets and the calculation of dose-volume histograms (DVHs). The dosimetric analysis illustrated high local doses that are characteristic of blood-flow directed brachytherapy. In the first case, the HCC mass demonstrated a complete response to treatment indicated by a necrotic region in follow-up MR imaging. This result was dosimetrically predicted since the gross tumor volume (GTV) was well covered by the prescription isodose volume (V150 Gy = 85%). The second case illustrated a partial response to treatment which was characterized by incomplete necrosis of an HCC mass and a remaining area of solid enhancement in follow-up MR imaging. This result was predicted by dosimetric analysis because the GTV demonstrated incomplete coverage by the prescription isodose volume (V470 Gy = 18%). The third case demonstrated extrahepatic activity. The dosimetry indicated that the prescription (125 Gy) isodose region extended outside of the liver into the duodenum (178 Gy maximum dose). This was predictive of toxicity as the patient later developed a duodenal ulcer. The ability to predict outcomes and complications using deformable image registration, calculated isodose distributions, and DVHs, points to the clinical utility of patient-specific dose calculations for 90 Y radioembolization treatment planning.

Investigating multi-objective fluence and beam orientation IMRT optimization.

Radiation Oncology treatment planning requires compromises to be made between clinical objectives that are invariably in conflict. It would be beneficial to have a 'bird's-eye-view' perspective of the full spectrum of treatment plans that represent the possible trade-offs between delivering the intended dose to the planning target volume (PTV) while optimally sparing the organs-at-risk (OARs). In this work, the authors demonstrate Pareto-aware radiotherapy evolutionary treatment optimization (PARETO), a multi-objective tool featuring such bird's-eye-view functionality, which optimizes fluence patterns and beam angles for intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) treatment planning. The problem of IMRT treatment plan optimization is managed as a combined monolithic problem, where all beam fluence and angle parameters are treated equally during the optimization. To achieve this, PARETO is built around a powerful multi-objective evolutionary algorithm, called Ferret, which simultaneously optimizes multiple fitness functions that encode the attributes of the desired dose distribution for the PTV and OARs. The graphical interfaces within PARETO provide useful information such as: the convergence behavior during optimization, trade-off plots between the competing objectives, and a graphical representation of the optimal solution database allowing for the rapid exploration of treatment plan quality through the evaluation of dose-volume histograms and isodose distributions. PARETO was evaluated for two relatively complex clinical cases, a paranasal sinus and a pancreas case. The end result of each PARETO run was a database of optimal (non-dominated) treatment plans that demonstrated trade-offs between the OAR and PTV fitness functions, which were all equally good in the Pareto-optimal sense (where no one objective can be improved without worsening at least one other). Ferret was able to produce high quality solutions even though a large number of parameters, such as beam fluence and beam angles, were included in the optimization.

Role of Gamma Knife® Radiosurgery for the Treatment of Brain Metastases from Gynecological Cancers.

OBJECTIVE: Gamma Knife® (GK) (Elekta Instruments, Stockholm, Sweden) radiosurgery is well established for treatment of brain metastases. There are limited data on patients treated with GK from gynecological cancers. The authors sought to determine the effectiveness of the GK in patients with brain metastases from gynecological cancers. METHODS: An IRB-approved database was queried for patients with gynecologic cancers treated with GK between June 1996 and May 2016. Imaging studies were reviewed post-SRS (stereotactic radiosurgery) to evaluate local control (LC) and distant brain control (DC). Overall survival (OS), local control, and distant brain control were calculated using the Kaplan-Meier (KM) method and log-rank test.  Results: Thirty-three patients underwent SRS for 73 separate cranial lesions. The median age was -58.5 years, and 17 (52%) also had extracranial metastases. Ten (30%) patients had previously received whole brain radiotherapy (WBRT), and 11 (33%) underwent concurrent WBRT. The median tumor volume was 0.96 cm3. Median radiographic follow-up was 11 months. At the time of treatment, 39% of patients were categorized as recursive partitioning analysis (RPA) Class I, 55% as RPA Class II, and 6% as RPA Class III. The local failure rate was 8%. Five patients (15%) developed new brain lesions outside the radiation field with a median progression-free survival (PFS) of seven (range: 3-9) months. Median OS was 15 months from GK treatment. One-year OS was 72.9% from GK treatment. Primary cancer histology was a significant predictor of OS, favoring ovarian and endometrial cancer (p = 0.03). CONCLUSIONS: Gamma Knife stereotactic radiosurgery for gynecologic brain metastases leads to excellent control rates of treated lesions. Primary histology may have a significant impact on OS following GK, with improved survival seen with ovarian and cervical cancer following Gamma Knife radiosurgery (p = 0.03).

Improving intensity-modulated radiation therapy using the anatomic beam orientation optimization algorithm.

A novel, anatomic beam orientation optimization (A-BOO) algorithm is proposed to significantly improve conventional intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT). The A-BOO algorithm vectorially analyses polygonal surface mesh data of contoured patient anatomy. Five optimal (5-opt) deliverable beam orientations are selected based on (1) tangential orientation bisecting the target and adjacent organ's-at-risk (OARs) to produce precipitous dose gradients between them and (2) parallel incidence with polygon features of the target volume to facilitate conformal coverage. The 5-opt plans were compared to standard five, seven, and nine equiangular-spaced beam plans (5-equi, 7-equi, 9-equi) for: (1) gastric, (2) Radiation Therapy Oncology Group (RTOG) P-0126 prostate, and (3) RTOG H-0022 oropharyngeal (stage-III, IV) cancer patients. In the gastric case, the noncoplanar 5-opt plan reduced the right kidney V 20 Gy by 32.2%, 23.2%, and 20.6% compared to plans with five, seven, and nine equiangular-spaced beams. In the prostate case, the coplanar 5-opt plan produced similar rectal sparing as the 7-equi and 9-equi plans with a reduction of the V 75, V 70, V 65, and V 60 Gy of 2.4%, 5.3%, 7.0%, and 9.5% compared to the 5-equi plan. In the stage-III and IV oropharyngeal cases, the noncoplanar 5-opt plan substantially reduced the V 30 Gy and mean dose to the contralateral parotid compared to plans with five, seven, and nine equiangular-spaced beams: (stage-III) 7.1%, 5.2%, 6.8%, and 5.1, 3.5, 3.7 Gy and (stage-IV) 10.2%, 10.2%, 9.8% and 7.0, 7.1, 7.2 Gy. The geometry-based A-BOO algorithm has been demonstrated to be robust for application to a variety of IMRT treatment sites. Beam orientations producing significant improvements in OAR sparing over conventional IMRT can be automatically produced in minutes compared to hours with existing dose-based beam orientation optimization methods.

A simple geometric algorithm to predict optimal starting gantry angles using equiangular-spaced beams for intensity modulated radiation therapy of prostate cancer.

A fast, geometric beam angle optimization (BAO) algorithm for clinical intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) was implemented on ten localized prostate cancer patients on the Radiation Therapy Oncology Group (RTOG) 0126 protocol. The BAO algorithm computed the beam intersection volume (BIV) within the rectum and bladder using five and seven equiangular-spaced beams as a function of starting gantry angle for comparison to the V 75 Gy and V 70 Gy. A mathematical theory was presented to explain the correlation of BIV with dose and dose-volume metrics. The class solution 'W' pattern in the rectal V 75 Gy and V 70 Gy as a function of starting gantry angle using five equiangular-spaced beams (with two separate minima centered near 20 degrees and 50 degrees) was reproduced by the 5 BIV within the rectum. A strong correlation was found between the rectal 5 BIV and the rectal V 75 Gy and V 70 Gy as a function of starting gantry angle. The BAO algorithm predicted the location of the two dosimetric minima in rectal V 75 Gy and V 70 Gy (optimal starting gantry angles) to within 5 degrees. It was demonstrated that the BIV geometric variations for seven equiangular-spaced beams were too small to translate into a strong dosimetric effect in the rectal V 75 Gy and V 70 Gy. The relatively flat distribution with starting gantry angle of the bladder V 75 Gy and V 70 Gy was reproduced by the bladder five and seven BIV for each patient. A geometric BAO method based on BIV has the advantage over dosimetric BAO methods of simplicity and rapid computation time. This algorithm can be used as a standalone optimization method or act as a rapid calculation filter to reduce the search space for a dosimetric BAO method. Given the clinically infeasible computation times of many dosimetric beam orientation optimization algorithms, this robust geometric BIV algorithm has the potential to facilitate beam angle selection for prostate IMRT in clinical practice.

Optimal starting gantry angles using equiangular-spaced beams with intensity modulated radiation therapy for prostate cancer on RTOG 0126: a clinical study of 5 and 7 fields.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: To investigate the effects of starting gantry angle and number of equiangular-spaced beams for prostate cancer radiotherapy on the Radiation Therapy Oncology Group (RTOG) 0126 protocol using intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT). MATERIALS AND METHODS: Ten localized prostate cancer patients were prescribed to 79.2Gy in 44 fractions. Static IMRT plans using five and seven equiangular-spaced beams were generated. The starting gantry angles were incremented by 5 degrees resulting in 15 (5 beams) and 11 (7 beams) plans per patient. Constant target coverage was ensured for all plans in order to isolate the variation in the rectal and bladder metrics as a function of starting gantry angle. RESULTS: The variation with starting gantry angle in rectal metrics using 5 beams was statistically significant (p<0.001) with dosimetric importance. The 5-beam rectal V 75Gy and V 70Gy demonstrated a class solution with a characteristic 'W' pattern and two optimal starting gantry angles near 20 degrees and 50 degrees . Statistically insignificant differences were observed for the bladder metrics using 5 beams. There was little dosimetric variation in the rectal and bladder metrics with 7 beams. Nearly equivalent rectal V 75Gy was achieved between 5 optimal equiangular-spaced beams starting at 20 degrees (class solution) and 7 equiangular-spaced beams starting at 0 degrees for most patients. CONCLUSIONS: The use of an optimal starting gantry angle for 5 equiangular-spaced beams, as indicated by a class solution in this study, will facilitate rectal sparing and can produce plans that are equivalent to those employing 7 equiangular-spaced beams.