BACKGROUND The aim of this study was to investigate if the flattening filter free (FFF) irradiation mode of a linear accelerator (linac) is advantageous as compared to the flat beam (FF) irradiation mode in intensity modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) and volumetric modulated arc therapy (VMAT) for carcinoma of the hypopharynx / larynx. METHODS Four treatment plans were created for each of 10...

It is important to improve the magnitude of dose variation that is caused by the interplay effect. The aim of this study was to investigate the impact of the number of breaths (NBs) to the dose variation for VMAT-SBRT to lung cancer. Data on respiratory motion and multileaf collimator (MLC) sequence were collected from the cases of 30 patients who underwent radiotherapy with VMAT-SBRT for lung ...

PURPOSE The purpose of this study was to assess the dosimetric equivalence of magnetic resonance (MR)-generated synthetic CT (synCT) and simulation CT for treatment planning in radiotherapy of rectal cancer. METHODS This study was conducted on eleven patients who underwent whole-body PET/MR and PET/CT examination in a prospective IRB-approved study. For each patient synCT was generated from D...

Post-mastectomy radiotherapy (PMRT) has been shown to improve disease-free survival and overall survival for locally advanced breast cancer. However, long term survivors may develop life threatening acute and chronic treatment-related toxicities after radiotherapy, like cardiac toxicity and second cancers. The more advanced techniques like volumetric arc therapy (VMAT), and proton therapy have ...

BACKGROUND The aim of this review is the critical appraisal of the current use of volumetric modulated arc therapy for the radiation therapy management of breast cancer. Both clinical and treatment planning studies were investigated. MATERIAL AND METHODS A Pubmed/MEDLINE search of the National Library of Medicine was performed to identify VMAT and breast related articles. After a first order ...

The purpose of this study is to investigate the interplay effect between dynamic MLC movement and tumor respiratory motion in volumetric-modulated arc therapy (VMAT)-based lung SBRT treatment delivered by the flattening filter-free (FFF) beam of a Varian TrueBeam machine. Six lung cancer patients with tumor motions ranging between 0.5-1.6 cm were recruited in this study. All patients underwent ...

The aim of this study was to assess the feasibility of sparing contralateral hippocampus during partial brain radiotherapy in high grade gliomas. 20 previously treated patients were replanned to 60 Gy in 30 fractions with sparing intensity-modulated radiotherapy (IMRT) and volumetric modulated arctherapy (VMAT) using the following planning objectives: 100 % of PTV covered by 95% isodose without...

PURPOSE To investigate the feasibility of a novel dedicated treatment planning solution, to automatically target multiple brain metastases with a single isocenter and multiple inversely-optimized dynamic conformal arcs (DCA), and to benchmark it against the well-established multiple isocenter DCA (MIDCA) and volumetric modulated arc therapy (VMAT) approaches. MATERIAL AND METHODS Ten previous...

PURPOSE Hypofractionated radiotherapy can reduce treatment durations and produce effects identical to those of conventionally fractionated radiotherapy for treating prostate cancer. Volumetric arc radiotherapy (VMAT) can decrease the treatment machine monitor units (MUs). Previous studies have shown that VMAT with multileaf collimator (MLC) rotation exhibits better target dose distribution. Thu...

BACKGROUND Radiotherapy in Hodgkin's Lymphoma (HL) is currently evolving with new attempts to further reduce radiation volumes to the involved-node concept (Involved Nodes Radiation Therapy, INRT) and with the use of intensity modulated radiotherapy (IMRT). Currently, IMRT can be planned and delivered with several techniques, and its role is not completely clear. We designed a planning study on...