BACKGROUND To report the toxicity after intensity modulated radiotherapy (IMRT) for patients with localized prostate cancer, as a sole treatment or after radical prostatectomy. METHODS Between August 2001 and December 2003, 132 patients with prostate cancer were treated with IMRT and 125 were evaluable to acute and late toxicity analysis, after a minimum follow-up time of one year. Clinical a...

PURPOSE The purpose of this study is to evaluate the feasibility of kilovoltage cone-beam CT (CBCT) images that are obtained with the Varian On-Board Imager in dose calculation at each radiation therapy. METHODS CBCT images are commonly degraded by scattered radiations originating in the patient's body, and so the CT numbers of the CBCT images depend on data acquisition conditions and the pat...

BACKGROUND For brachytherapy of cervical cancer, applicator shifts can not be avoided. The present investigation concerned Utrecht interstitial applicator shifts and their effects on organ movement and DVH parameters during 3D CT-based HDR brachytherapy of cervical cancer. MATERIALS AND METHODS After the applicator being implanted, CT imaging was achieved for oncologist contouring CTVhr, CTVi...

OBJECTIVE To assess the impact of CT slice index and thickness (3 mm versus 5 mm) on (i) prostate volume, dimensions, and isocenter coordinates, (ii) bladder and rectal volumes, and (iii) DRR quality, in the treatment of prostate cancer. METHODS 16 patients with prostate cancer underwent two planning CT-scans using 3 and 5 mm slice index/thickness. Prostate, bladder, and rectum were outlined ...

PURPOSE A software program (MU-EPID) has been developed to perform patient specific IMRT pre-treatment QA verification using an electronic portal imaging device. METHODS The software converts measured images of intensity modulated beams delivered to an EPID, into fluence maps that can be imported in the treatment planning system. The dose can then be calculated in the patient anatomy and comp...

Computed tomography (CT)/magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) fusion is considered to be the best method for postimplant dosimetry of permanent prostate brachytherapy; however, it is inconvenient and costly. In T2*-weighted image (T2*-WI), seeds can be easily detected without the use of an intravenous contrast material. We present a novel method for postimplant dosimetry using T2*-WI/T2-weighted im...

RapidPlan, a commercial knowledge-based optimizer, has been tested on head and neck, lung, esophageal, breast, liver, and prostate cancer patients. To appraise its performance on VMAT planning with simultaneous integrated boosting (SIB) for rectal cancer, this study configured a DVH (dose-volume histogram) estimation model consisting 80 best-effort manual cases of this type. Using the model-gen...

There are many tools available that are used to evaluate a radiotherapy treatment plan, such as isodose distribution charts, dose volume histograms (DVH), maximum, minimum and mean doses of the dose distributions as well as DVH point dose constraints. All the already mentioned evaluation tools are dosimetric only without taking into account the radiobiological characteristics of tumors or OARs....

Article type: Original Article Introduction: The ultimate goal of radiation treatment planning is to yield a high tumor control probability (TCP) with a low normal tissue complication probability (NTCP). Historically dose volume histogram (DVH) with only volumetric dose distribution was utilized as a popular tool for plan evaluation hence present study aimed to compare the radiobiological effec...

Cone-beam computed tomography (CBCT) images have inaccurate CT numbers because of scattered photons. Thus, quantitative analysis of scattered photons that affect an electron density (ED) curve and calculated doses may be effective information to achieve CBCT-based radiation treatment planning. We quantitatively evaluated the effect of scattered photons on the accuracy of dose calculations from ...