Adaptation of the CVT algorithm for catheter optimization in high dose rate brachytherapy
- Département de Physique, de Génie Physique et d’Optique et Centre de recherche sur le cancer de l’Université Laval, Université Laval, Québec, Québec G1V 0A6, Canada and Département de Radio-Oncologie et Axe oncologie du Centre de Recherche du CHU de Québec, CHU de Québec, 11 Côte du Palais, Québec, Québec G1R 2J6 (Canada)
- Département de Radio-Oncologie, CHU de Québec, 11 Côte du Palais, Québec, Québec G1R 2J6 (Canada)
- Imaging Research Laboratories, Robarts Research Institute, 100 Perth Drive, London, Ontario N6A 5K8 (United Kingdom)
- Department of Radiation Oncology, University of California San Francisco, Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center, 1600 Divisadero Street, San Francisco, California 94143-1708 (United States)
Purpose: An innovative, simple, and fast method to optimize the number and position of catheters is presented for prostate and breast high dose rate (HDR) brachytherapy, both for arbitrary templates or template-free implants (such as robotic templates).Methods: Eight clinical cases were chosen randomly from a bank of patients, previously treated in our clinic to test our method. The 2D Centroidal Voronoi Tessellations (CVT) algorithm was adapted to distribute catheters uniformly in space, within the maximum external contour of the planning target volume. The catheters optimization procedure includes the inverse planning simulated annealing algorithm (IPSA). Complete treatment plans can then be generated from the algorithm for different number of catheters. The best plan is chosen from different dosimetry criteria and will automatically provide the number of catheters and their positions. After the CVT algorithm parameters were optimized for speed and dosimetric results, it was validated against prostate clinical cases, using clinically relevant dose parameters. The robustness to implantation error was also evaluated. Finally, the efficiency of the method was tested in breast interstitial HDR brachytherapy cases.Results: The effect of the number and locations of the catheters on prostate cancer patients was studied. Treatment plans with a better or equivalent dose distributions could be obtained with fewer catheters. A better or equal prostate V100 was obtained down to 12 catheters. Plans with nine or less catheters would not be clinically acceptable in terms of prostate V100 and D90. Implantation errors up to 3 mm were acceptable since no statistical difference was found when compared to 0 mm error (p > 0.05). No significant difference in dosimetric indices was observed for the different combination of parameters within the CVT algorithm. A linear relation was found between the number of random points and the optimization time of the CVT algorithm. Because the computation time decrease with the number of points and that no effects were observed on the dosimetric indices when varying the number of sampling points and the number of iterations, they were respectively fixed to 2500 and to 100. The computation time to obtain ten complete treatments plans ranging from 9 to 18 catheters, with the corresponding dosimetric indices, was 90 s. However, 93% of the computation time is used by a research version of IPSA. For the breast, on average, the Radiation Therapy Oncology Group recommendations would be satisfied down to 12 catheters. Plans with nine or less catheters would not be clinically acceptable in terms of V100, dose homogeneity index, and D90.Conclusions: The authors have devised a simple, fast and efficient method to optimize the number and position of catheters in interstitial HDR brachytherapy. The method was shown to be robust for both prostate and breast HDR brachytherapy. More importantly, the computation time of the algorithm is acceptable for clinical use. Ultimately, this catheter optimization algorithm could be coupled with a 3D ultrasound system to allow real-time guidance and planning in HDR brachytherapy.
- OSTI ID:
- 22220260
- Journal Information:
- Medical Physics, Vol. 40, Issue 11; Other Information: (c) 2013 American Association of Physicists in Medicine; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0094-2405
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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61 RADIATION PROTECTION AND DOSIMETRY
ANNEALING
BRACHYTHERAPY
CALCULATION METHODS
DOSE EQUIVALENTS
DOSE RATES
DOSIMETRY
ERRORS
MAMMARY GLANDS
NEOPLASMS
OPTIMIZATION
PATIENTS
PLANNING
PROSTATE
RADIATION DOSES
RADIATION SOURCE IMPLANTS
RANDOMNESS
RECOMMENDATIONS
SAMPLING
SIMULATION