A 4D IMRT planning method using deformable image registration to improve normal tissue sparing with contemporary delivery techniques

We propose a planning method to design true 4-dimensional (4D) intensity-modulated radiotherapy (IMRT) plans, called the t4Dplan method, in which the planning target volume (PTV) of the individual phases of the 4D computed tomography (CT) and the conventional PTV receive non-uniform doses but the cumulative dose to the PTV of each phase, computed using deformable image registration (DIR), are uniform. The non-uniform dose prescription for the conventional PTV was obtained by solving linear equations that required motion-convolved 4D dose to be uniform to the PTV for the end-exhalation phase (PTV50) and by constraining maximum inhomogeneity to 20%. A plug-in code to the treatment planning system was developed to perform the IMRT optimization based on this non-uniform PTV dose prescription. The 4D dose was obtained by summing the mapped doses from individual phases of the 4D CT using DIR. This 4D dose distribution was compared with that of the internal target volume (ITV) method. The robustness of the 4D plans over the course of radiotherapy was evaluated by computing the 4D dose distributions on repeat 4D CT datasets. Three patients with lung tumors were selected to demonstrate the advantages of the t4Dplan method compared with the commonly used ITV method. The 4D dose distribution using the t4Dplan method resulted in greater normal tissue sparing (such as lung, stomach, liver and heart) than did plans designed using the ITV method. The dose volume histograms of cumulative 4D doses to the PTV50, clinical target volume, lung, spinal cord, liver, and heart on the 4D repeat CTs for the two patients were similar to those for the 4D dose at the time of original planning.