BACKGROUND To compare morphological gross tumor volumes (GTVs), defined as pre- and postoperative gadolinium enhancement on T1-weighted magnetic resonance imaging to biological tumor volumes (BTVs), defined by the uptake of (18)F fluoroethyltyrosine (FET) for the radiotherapy planning of high-grade glioma, using a dedicated positron emission tomography (PET)-CT scanner equipped with three trian...

PURPOSE To analyze the feasibility of omitting clinical target volume (CTV) for limited small cell lung cancer treated with chemotherapy and intensity modulated radiotherapy. METHODS AND MATERIALS 89 patients were treated from January 1, 2008 to August 31, 2011, 54 cases were irradiated with target volume without CTV, and 35 cases were irradiated with CTV. Both arms were irradiated post chemo...

In radiotherapy a common method used to compensate for patient setup error and organ motion is to enlarge the clinical target volume (CTV) by a 'margin' to produce a 'planning target volume' (PTV). Using weighted power loss functions as a measure of performance for a treatment plan, a simple method can be developed to calculate the ideal spatial dose distribution (one that minimizes expected lo...

The objectives of this study were to estimate global uncertainty for patients with thoracic tumors treated in our center using the CyberKnife VSI after placement of fiducial markers and to compare our findings with the standard CTV to PTV margins used to date. Datasets for 16 patients (54 fractions) treated with the CyberKnife and the Synchrony Respiratory Tracking System were analyzed retrospe...

BACKGROUND PET/CT scans acquired in the radiotherapy treatment position are typically performed without compensating for respiratory motion. The purpose of this study was to investigate geographic miss of lung tumours due to respiratory motion for target volumes defined on a standard 3D-PET/CT. METHODS 29 patients staged for pulmonary malignancy who completed both a 3D-PET/CT and 4D-PET/CT we...

The prediction as well as the gating of respiratory motion have received much attention over the last two decades for reducing the targeting error of the radiation treatment beam due to respiratory motion. In this article, we present a real-time algorithm for predicting respiratory motion in 3D space and realizing a gating function without pre-specifying a particular phase of the patient's brea...

Background and purpose: There are several alternatives to the widespread ITV strategy in order account for breathing-induced motion PTV margins. The most sophisticated one includes generation of a motion-compensated CT scan with CTV placed its average position – mid-position approach (MidP). In such configuration, margins integrate breathing as another random error. Despite overall irradiated v...

In order to achive best results in radiotherapeutic treatment of tumor tissue, one needs to precisely reconstruct the setup defined in therapy planning before the treatment can start. Inaccuracies in either defining the treatment parameters or transferring positioning markers to the patient’s body, errors in treatment device setup or patient motion during the treatment result in a displacement ...

PURPOSE To test a prone position against the international-standard supine position in women undergoing whole-breast-radiotherapy (WBRT) after wide-local-excision (WLE) of early breast cancer (BC) in terms of feasibility, set-up errors, and respiratory motion. METHODS Following WLE of BC with insertion of tumour-bed clips, patients underwent 4D-CT for WBRT-planning in supine and prone positio...