PURPOSE To develop an automated technique for evaluating lung stereotactic body radiotherapy (SBRT) plan quality and predicting achievable lung dose constraints. METHODS We examined the workflow scripting capabilities of a radiation oncology software package (MIM Software Inc) for automatically generating mean dose gradients and overlap volume histograms (OVHs) for lung SBRT plans. Mean dose ...

BACKGROUND To compare the dosimetric coverage of target volumes and organs at risk in the radical treatment of nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) between intensity-modulated radiotherapy (IMRT) and three- dimensional conformal radiotherapy (3DCRT). MATERIALS AND METHODS Data from 10 consecutive patients treated with IMRT from June-October 2011 in Penang General Hospital were collected retrospecti...

The objective of this work is to present commissioning procedures to clinically implement a three-dimensional (3D), image-based, treatment-planning system (TPS) for high-dose-rate (HDR) brachytherapy (BT) for gynecological (GYN) cancer. The physical dimensions of the GYN applicators and their values in the virtual applicator library were varied by 0.4 mm of their nominal values. Reconstruction ...

PURPOSE The aim of this work is to compare selected parameters of implants and natural dose volume histograms for two techniques of interstitial pulsed dose rate brachytherapy (PDR BT) as a boost to the tumour bed in breast-conserving therapy (BCT). MATERIAL AND METHODS Data of T1-3N0-2M0 breast cancer patients who underwent BCT with BT boost between 05.2002 and 12.2008 were analysed. Ninety ...

PURPOSE To evaluate the ability of intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) to reduce the volume of small bowel irradiated in women with gynecologic malignancies receiving whole pelvic radiotherapy (WPRT). METHODS AND MATERIALS Ten women with cervical (5) or endometrial (5) cancer undergoing WPRT were selected for this analysis. A planning CT scan of each patient was obtained following ad...

The purpose of the study was to investigate the potential of direct machine parameter optimization (DMPO) to achieve parotid sparing without compromising target coverage in IMRT of oropharyngeal cancer as compared to fluence modulation with subsequent leaf sequencing (IM) and forward planned 2-step arc therapy (IMAT). IMRT plans were generated for 10 oropharyngeal cancer patients using DMPO and...

PurposeLocally advanced breast cancer requires surgical management via lumpectomy or mastectomy with without systemic therapy followed by chest wall (CW) and comprehensive nodal irradiation (CNI). Radiation (RT) dose constraints for the heart ipsilateral lung have been developed based on photon RT. Proton (PBT) can deliver significantly lower doses of RT to these organs-at-risk (OARs) may warra...

PURPOSE To evaluate dosimetric variations of planning target volume (PTV) on critical organs such as rectal wall, bladder and femoral head, when the patient size changes due to weight loss in prostate volumetric modulated arc therapy (VMAT). METHODS Three patients with small (32.0 cm3 ), medium (48.4 cm3 ) and large (86.5 cm3 ) prostate, selected from a group of 30 were planned for prostate V...

Reducing the treatment time for IMRT patients is highly desirable. The objective of this work was to evaluate the new clinical Siemens KonRad inverse treatment planning system (TPS) and compare it to the CMS XiO TPS with special emphasis on the segmentation efficiency. For head and neck, liver and prostate cancer patients, step-and-shoot IMRT plans were designed using both CMS XiO and Siemens K...

Based on the assumption that apparent diffusion coefficients (ADCs) define high-risk clinical target volume (aCTVHR) in high-grade glioma in a cellularity-dependent manner, the dosimetric effects of aCTVHR-targeted dose optimization were evaluated in two intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) plans. Diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance (MR) images and ADC maps were analyzed qualitatively...