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Efficacy of Exit Fluence-Based Dose Calculation for Prostate Radiation Therapy


J Siebers

J Siebers1*, J Gardner2 , B Neal3 , (1) University of Virginia Health System, Charlottesville, VA, (2) Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA, (3) University of Virginia Health Systems, Charlottesville, VA

Presentations

SU-F-T-258 (Sunday, July 31, 2016) 3:00 PM - 6:00 PM Room: Exhibit Hall


Purpose:
To investigate the efficacy of exit-fluence-based dose computation for prostate radiotherapy by determining if it estimates true dose more accurately than the original planning dose.

Methods:
Virtual exit-fluence-based dose computation was performed for 19 patients, each with 9-12 repeat CT images. For each patient, a 78 Gy treatment plan was created utilizing 5 mm CTV-to-PTV and OAR-to-PRV margins. A Monte Carlo framework was used to compute dose and exit-fluence images for the planning image and for each repeat CT image based on boney-anatomy-aligned and prostate-centroid-aligned CTs. Identical source particles were used for the MC dose-computations on the planning and repeat CTs to maximize correlation. The exit-fluence-based dose and image were computed by multiplying source particle weights by FC(x,y)=FP(x,y)/FT(x,y), where (x,y) are the source particle coordinates projected to the exit-fluence plane and we denote the dose/fluence from the plan by (DP,FP), from the repeat-CT as (DT,FT), and the exit-fluence computation by (DFC,FFC). DFC mimics exit-fluence backprojection through the planning image as FT=FFC. Dose estimates were intercompared to judge the efficacy of exit-fluence-based dose computation.

Results: Boney- and prostate-centroid aligned results are combined as there is no statistical difference between them, yielding 420 dose comparisons per dose-volume metric. DFC is more accurate than DP for 46%, 33%, and 44% of cases in estimating CTV D98, D50, and D2 respectively. DFC improved rectum D50 and D2 estimates 54% and 49% respectively and bladder D50 and D2 47 and 49% respectively. While averaged over all patients and images DFC and DP were within 3.1% of DT, they differed from DT by as much as 22% for GTV D98, 71% for the Bladder D50, 17% for Bladder D2, 19% for Rectum D2.

Conclusion:
Exit-fluence based dose computations infrequently improve CTV or OAR dose estimates and should be used with caution.


Funding Support, Disclosures, and Conflict of Interest: Research supported in part by Varian Medical Systems.


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