Conventional hard or dynamic wedge systems are commonly applied to reduce the dose inhomogeneity associated with whole breast irradiation. We evaluated the dosimetric benefits of the field-in-field (FIF) technique by comparing it with the electronic compensator (EC), Varian enhanced dynamic wedge (EW) and conventional hard wedge (HW) techniques. Data were obtained from 12 patients who had under...

OBJECTIVE To compare the differences between contrast-enhanced (CE) fluorine-18 fludeoxyglucose ((18)F-FDG) positron emission tomography (PET)/CT and CECT in target volume delineation and radiotherapy (RT) dose distribution, and to evaluate the sparing of organs at risk (OARs) in the treatment plan of locally advanced pancreatic cancer (LAPC). METHODS 21 consecutive patients with LAPC with hi...

Spatial accuracy in extracranial radiosurgery is affected by organ motion. Motion tracking systems may be able to avoid PTV enlargement while preserving treatment times, however special attention is needed when fiducial markers are used to identify the target can move with respect to organs at risk (OARs). Ten patients treated by means of the Synchrony system were taken into account. Sparing of...

For stereotactic ablative body radiotherapy (SABR) in lung cancer patients, Radiation Therapy Oncology Group (RTOG) protocols currently require radiation dose to be calculated using tissue heterogeneity corrections. Dosimetric criteria of RTOG 0813 were established based on the results obtained from non-Monte Carlo (MC) algorithms, such as superposition/convolutions. Clinically, MC-based algori...

PURPOSE Accurate delineation of organs at risk (OARs) on computed tomography (CT) image is required for radiation treatment planning (RTP). Manual delineation of OARs being time consuming and prone to high interobserver variability, many (semi-) automatic methods have been proposed. However, most of them are specific to a particular OAR. Here, an interactive computer-assisted system able to seg...

BACKGROUND Due to their favorable physical and biological properties, helium ion beams are increasingly considered a promising alternative to proton beams for radiation therapy. Hence, this work aims at comparing in-silico the treatment of brain and ocular meningiomas with protons and helium ions, using for the first time a dedicated Monte Carlo (MC) based treatment planning engine (MCTP) thoro...

PURPOSE We perform a clinical retrospective study to determine whether a vaginal balloon-packing system provides a dosimetric reduction to organs at risk (OARs) versus traditional gauze packing for gynecological high-dose-rate brachytherapy (HDR-BT). We also test various balloon filling materials for optimizing imaging quality. MATERIAL AND METHODS Filling materials for balloon-packing were e...

The aim is to evaluate the feasibility of ultra-hypofractionated (UH) SBRT with CyberKnife® (CK) radiosurgery (Accuray Inc., Sunnyvale, California, USA) for localized prostate cancer (PCa) a concomitant focal boost dominant intraprostatic lesion (DIL). Patients intermediate/high-risk PCa, at least one visible DIL on multi-parametric MRI, were included. For each, two CK-SBRT in silico plans calc...

To investigate the feasibility of image-based intracavitary brachytherapy (IBICBT) for uterine cervical cancer, we evaluated the dose-volume histograms (DVHs) for the tumor and organs at risk (OARs) and compared results from the IBICBT plan and the standard Manchester system (Manchester plan) in eight patients as a simulation experiment. We performed magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and compute...