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A treatment planning study comparing Elekta VMAT and fixed field IMRT using the varian treatment planning system eclipse.

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND: The newest release of the Eclipse (Varian) treatment planning system (TPS) includes an optimizing engine for Elekta volumetric-modulated arc therapy (VMAT) planning. The purpose of this study was to evaluate this new algorithm and to compare it to intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) for various disease sites by creating single- and double-arc VMAT plans. METHODS: A total of 162 plans were evaluated in this study, including 38 endometrial, 57 head and neck, 12 brain, 10 breast and 45 prostate cancer cases. The real-life IMRT plans were developed during routine clinical cases using the TPS Eclipse. VMAT plans were generated using a preclinical version of Eclipse with tumor-region-specific optimizing templates without interference of the operator: with one full arc (1A) and with two full arcs (2A), and with partial arcs for breast and prostate with hip implant cases. All plans were evaluated based on target coverage, homogeneity and conformity. The organs at risk (OARs) were analyzed according to plan objectives, such as the mean and maximum doses. If one or more objectives were exceeded, the plan was considered clinically unacceptable, and a second VMAT plan was created by adapting the optimization penalties once. RESULTS: Compared to IMRT, single- and double-arc VMAT plans showed comparable or better results concerning the target coverage: the maximum dose in the target for 1A is the same as that for IMRT; for 2A, an average reduction of 1.3% over all plans was observed. The conformity showed a statistically significant improvement for both 1A (+3%) and 2A (+6%). The mean total body dose was statistically significant lower for the considered arc techniques (IMRT: 16.0?Gy, VMAT: 15.3?Gy, p?

SUBMITTER: Peters S

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4107584 | biostudies-literature | 2014

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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A treatment planning study comparing Elekta VMAT and fixed field IMRT using the varian treatment planning system eclipse.

Peters Samuel S Schiefer Hans H Plasswilm Ludwig L

Radiation oncology (London, England) 20140710

<h4>Background</h4>The newest release of the Eclipse (Varian) treatment planning system (TPS) includes an optimizing engine for Elekta volumetric-modulated arc therapy (VMAT) planning. The purpose of this study was to evaluate this new algorithm and to compare it to intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) for various disease sites by creating single- and double-arc VMAT plans.<h4>Methods</h4>A total of 162 plans were evaluated in this study, including 38 endometrial, 57 head and neck, 12 br ...[more]

PMID: 25011529

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Project description:Volumetric-modulated arc therapy (VMAT) is emerging as a leading technology in treating early-stage, non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) with stereotactic ablative radiotherapy (SABR). However, two other modalities capable of deliver-ing intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) include fixed-beam and helical TomoTherapy (HT). This study aims to provide an extensive dosimetric compari-son among these various IMRT techniques for treating early-stage NSCLC with SABR. Ten early-stage NSCLC patients were retrospectively optimized using three fixed-beam techniques via nine to eleven beams (high and low modulation step-and-shoot (SS), and sliding window (SW)), two VMAT techniques via two partial arcs (SmartArc (SA) and RapidArc (RA)), and three HT techniques via three different fan beam widths (1 cm, 2.5 cm, and 5 cm) for 80 plans total. Fixed-beam and VMAT plans were generated using flattening filter-free beams. SS and SA, HT treatment plans, and SW and RA were optimized using Pinnacle v9.1, Tomoplan v.3.1.1, and Eclipse (Acuros XB v11.3 algorithm), respectively. Dose-volume histogram statistics, dose conformality, and treatment delivery efficiency were analyzed. VMAT treatment plans achieved significantly lower values for contralat-eral lung V5Gy (p ? 0.05) compared to the HT plans, and significantly lower mean lung dose (p < 0.006) compared to HT 5 cm treatment plans. In the comparison between the VMAT techniques, a significant reduction in the total monitor units (p = 0.05) was found in the SA plans, while a significant decrease was observed in the dose falloff parameter, D2cm, (p = 0.05), for the RA treatments. The maximum cord dose was significantly reduced (p = 0.017) in grouped RA&SA plans com-pared to SS. Estimated treatment time was significantly higher for HT and fixed-beam plans compared to RA&SA (p < 0.001). Although, a significant difference was not observed in the RA vs. SA (p = 0.393). RA&SA outperformed HT in all parameters measured. Despite an increase in dose to the heart and bronchus, this study demonstrates that VMAT is dosimetrically advantageous in treating early-stage NSCLC with SABR compared to fixed-beam, while providing significantly shorter treatment times.

Project description:PURPOSE:Comparing radiation treatment plans by using the same safety margins and dose objectives for all techniques, to ascertain the optimal radiation technique for the stereotactic body radiotherapy (SBRT) of low-risk prostate cancer. MATERIAL AND METHODS:Treatment plans for 27 randomly selected patients were compared using intensity-modulated (IMRT) techniques as Sliding Window (SW), volumetric modulated arc therapy (VMAT), and helical tomotherapy (HT), as well as Cyber Knife (CK) system. The target dose was calculated to 36.25?Gy delivered in five fractions over 1?week. Dosimetric indices for target volume and organs at risk (OAR) as well as normal tissue complication probability (NTCP) of late rectal and urinary bladder toxicities were analyzed. RESULTS:The CK provided lower homogeneity in the target volume, but higher values for most of the conformity indices compared to the IMRT approaches. The SW demonstrated superior rectum sparing at medium-to-high dose range (V18?Gy - V32.6?Gy) compared to other techniques (p <?0.05). The whole urinary bladder experienced the best shielding by SW and VMAT at the medium dose (V18?Gy, p <?0.05 versus CK), however we obtained no relevant differences between techniques at the high dose. Generally, the CK demonstrated significantly superior rectum and bladder exposure at V18?Gy as compared to HT, SW, and VMAT. For the rectum, mean NTCP values were significantly superior for HT (NTCP?=?2.3%, p <?0.05), and for urinary bladder, the NTCP showed no significant advantages for any technique. CONCLUSION:No absolute dosimetric advantage was revealed to choose between CK or IMRT techniques for the SBRT of low-grade prostate cancer. Using the same safety margins and dose objectives, IMRT techniques demonstrated superior sparing of the rectum and bladder at a medium dose compared to CK. Comparing different IMRT approaches SW displayed superior rectum sparing at a medium-to-high dose range, whereas both SW and RA revealed superior bladder sparing compared to HT. HT demonstrated a significantly lower NTCP outcome compared to CK or IMRT techniques regarding the rectum. Radiation plans can be optimized further by an individual modification of dose objectives independent of the treatment plan strategy.

Project description:BackgroundHypofractionated whole-breast irradiation is a standard adjuvant therapy for early-stage breast cancer. This study evaluates the plan quality and efficacy of an in-house-developed automated radiotherapy treatment planning algorithm for hypofractionated whole-breast radiotherapy.MethodsA cohort of 99 node-negative left-sided breast cancer patients completed hypofractionated whole-breast irradiation with six-field IMRT for 42.56 Gy in 16 daily fractions from year 2016 to 2018 at a tertiary center were re-planned with an in-house-developed algorithm. The automated plan-generating C#-based program is developed in a Varian ESAPI research mode. The dose-volume histogram (DVH) and other dosimetric parameters of the automated and manual plans were directly compared.ResultsThe average time for generating an autoplan was 5 to 6 min, while the manual planning time ranged from 1 to 1.5 h. There was only a small difference in both the gantry angles and the collimator angles between the autoplans and the manual plans (ranging from 2.2 to 5.3 degrees). Autoplans and manual plans performed similarly well in hotspot volume and PTV coverage, with the autoplans performing slightly better in the ipsilateral-lung-sparing dose parameters but were inferior in contralateral-breast-sparing. The autoplan dosimetric quality did not vary with different breast sizes, but for manual plans, there was worse ipsilateral-lung-sparing (V4Gy) in larger or medium-sized breasts than in smaller breasts. Autoplans were generally superior than manual plans in CI (1.24 ± 0.06 vs. 1.30 ± 0.09, p < 0.01) and MU (1010 ± 46 vs. 1205 ± 187, p < 0.01).ConclusionsOur study presents a well-designed standardized fully automated planning algorithm for optimized whole-breast radiotherapy treatment plan generation. A large cohort of 99 patients were re-planned and retrospectively analyzed. The automated plans demonstrated similar or even better dosimetric quality and efficacy in comparison with the manual plans. Our result suggested that the autoplanning algorithm has great clinical applicability potential.

Project description:The continuous scanning mode of electronic portal imaging devices (EPID) that offers time-resolved information has been newly explored for verifying dynamic radiation deliveries. This study seeks to determine operating conditions (dose rate stability and time resolution) under which that mode can be used accurately for the time-resolved dosimetry of intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) beams.The authors have designed the following test beams with variable beam holdoffs and dose rate regulations: a 10 × 10 cm open beam to serve as a reference beam; a sliding window (SW) beam utilizing the motion of a pair of multileaf collimator (MLC) leaves outside the 10 × 10 cm jaw; a step and shoot (SS) beam to move the pair in step; a volumetric modulated arc therapy (VMAT) beam. The beams were designed in such a way that they all produce the same open beam output of 10 × 10 cm. Time-resolved ion chamber measurements at isocenter and time-resolved and integrating EPID measurements were performed for all beams. The time-resolved EPID measurements were evaluated through comparison with the ion chamber and integrating EPID measurements, as the latter are accepted procedures. For two-dimensional, time-resolved evaluation, a VMAT beam with an infield MLC travel was designed. Time-resolved EPID measurements and Monte Carlo calculations of such EPID dose images for this beam were performed and intercompared.For IMRT beams (SW and SS), the authors found disagreement greater than 2%, caused by frame missing of the time-resolved mode. However, frame missing disappeared, yielding agreement better than 2%, when the dose rate of irradiation (and thus the frame acquisition rates) reached a stable and planned rate as the dose of irradiation was raised past certain thresholds (a minimum 12 s of irradiation per shoot used for SS IMRT). For VMAT, the authors found that dose rate does not affect the frame acquisition rate, thereby causing no frame missing. However, serious inplanar nonuniformities were found. This could be overcome by sacrificing temporal resolution (10 frames or 0.95 s/image): the continuous images agreed with ion chamber responses at the center of EPID and the calculation two-dimensionally in a time-resolved manner.The authors have determined conditions under which the continuous mode can be used for time-resolved dosimetry of fixed-gantry IMRT and VMAT and demonstrated it for VMAT.

Project description:To introduce a hybrid volumetric modulated arc therapy/intensity modulated radiation therapy (VMAT/IMRT) optimization strategy called FusionArc that combines the delivery efficiency of single-arc VMAT with the potentially desirable intensity modulation possible with IMRT.A beamlet-based inverse planning system was enhanced to combine the advantages of VMAT and IMRT into one comprehensive technique. In the hybrid strategy, baseline single-arc VMAT plans are optimized and then the current cost function gradients with respect to the beamlets are used to define a metric for predicting which beam angles would benefit from further intensity modulation. Beams with the highest metric values (called the gradient factor) are converted from VMAT apertures to IMRT fluence, and the optimization proceeds with the mixed variable set until convergence or until additional beams are selected for conversion. One phantom and two clinical cases were used to validate the gradient factor and characterize the FusionArc strategy. Comparisons were made between standard IMRT, single-arc VMAT, and FusionArc plans with one to five IMRT∕hybrid beams.The gradient factor was found to be highly predictive of the VMAT angles that would benefit plan quality the most from beam modulation. Over the three cases studied, a FusionArc plan with three converted beams achieved superior dosimetric quality with reductions in final cost ranging from 26.4% to 48.1% compared to single-arc VMAT. Additionally, the three beam FusionArc plans required 22.4%-43.7% fewer MU∕Gy than a seven beam IMRT plan. While the FusionArc plans with five converted beams offer larger reductions in final cost--32.9%-55.2% compared to single-arc VMAT--the decrease in MU∕Gy compared to IMRT was noticeably smaller at 12.2%-18.5%, when compared to IMRT.A hybrid VMAT∕IMRT strategy was implemented to find a high quality compromise between gantry-angle and intensity-based degrees of freedom. This optimization method will allow patients to be simultaneously planned for dosimetric quality and delivery efficiency without switching between delivery techniques. Example phantom and clinical cases suggest that the conversion of only three VMAT segments to modulated beams may result in a good combination of quality and efficiency.

Project description:PurposeIntensity-modulated radiotherapy (IMRT) and volumetric modulated arc therapy (VMAT), two advanced modes of high-precision radiotherapy (RT), have become standard of care in the treatment of head and neck cancer. The development in RT techniques has markedly increased the complexity of target volume definition and accurate treatment delivery. The aim of this study was to indirectly investigate the quality of current TV delineation and RT delivery by analyzing the patterns of treatment failure for head and neck cancer patients in our high-volume RT center.MethodsBetween 2004 and 2014, 385 patients with pharyngeal, laryngeal, and oral cavity tumors were curatively treated with primary RT (IMRT/VMAT). We retrospectively investigated locoregional recurrences (LRR), distant metastases (DM), and overall survival (OS).ResultsMedian follow-up was 6.4 years (IQR 4.7-8.3 years) during which time 122 patients (31.7%) developed LRR (22.1%) and DM (17.7%). The estimated 2- and 5-year locoregional control was 78.2% (95% CI 73.3, 82.3) and 74.2% (95% CI 69.0, 78.8). One patient developed a local recurrence outside the high-dose volume and five patients developed a regional recurrence outside the high-dose volume. Four patients (1.0%) suffered a recurrence in the electively irradiated neck and two patients had a recurrence outside the electively irradiated neck. No marginal failures were observed. The estimated 2- and 5-year DM-free survival rates were 83.3% (95% CI 78.9, 86.9) and 80.0% (95% CI 75.2, 84.0). The estimated 2- and 5-year OS rates were 73.6% (95% CI 68.9, 77.8) and 52. 6% (95% CI 47.3, 57.6). Median OS was 5.5 years (95% CI 4.5, 6.7).ConclusionTarget volume definition and treatment delivery were performed accurately, as only few recurrences occurred outside the high-dose regions and no marginal failures were observed. Research on dose intensification and identification of high-risk subvolumes might decrease the risk of locoregional relapses. The results of this study may serve as reference data for comparison with future studies, such as dose escalation or proton therapy trials.

Dataset Information

A treatment planning study comparing Elekta VMAT and fixed field IMRT using the varian treatment planning system eclipse.

Publications

A treatment planning study comparing Elekta VMAT and fixed field IMRT using the varian treatment planning system eclipse.

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