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Four-dimensional radiotherapeutic dose calculation using biomechanical respiratory motion description

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International Journal of Computer Assisted Radiology and Surgery Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Purpose

   Organ motion due to patient breathing introduces a technical challenge for dosimetry and lung tumor treatment by hadron therapy. Accurate dose distribution estimation requires patient-specific information on tumor position, size, and shape as well as information regarding the material density and stopping power of the media along the beam path. A new 4D dosimetry method was developed, which can be coupled to any motion estimation method. As an illustration, the new method was implemented and tested with a biomechanical model and clinical data.

Methods

   First, an anatomical model of the lung and tumor was synthesized with deformable tetrahedral grids using computed tomography (CT) images. The CT attenuation values were estimated at the grid vertices. Respiratory motion was simulated biomechanically based on nonlinear finite element analysis. Contrary to classical image-based methods where motion is described using deformable image registration algorithms, the dose distribution was accumulated over tetrahedral meshes that are deformed using biomechanical modeling based on finite element analysis.

Results

   The new method preserves the mass of the objects during simulation with an error between 1.6 and 3.6 %. The new method was compared to an existing dose calculation method demonstrating significant differences between the two approaches and overall superior performance using the new method.

Conclusion

   A unified model of 4D radiotherapy respiratory effects was developed where biomechanical simulations are coupled with dose calculations. Promising results demonstrate that this approach has significant potential for the treatment for moving tumors.

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Acknowledgments

This research is supported by the ENVISION project (co-funded by the European Commission under the FP7 Collaborative Projects Grant Agreement Nr. 241851FP7), by ETOILE Research Program (PRRH/UCBL, under CPER 2007-13 funding and by the LABEX PRIMES (ANR-11-LABX-0063) , within the program “Investissements d’Avenir” (ANR-11-IDEX-0007) operated by the French National Research Agency (ANR).

Conflict of interest

Petru Manescu, Hamid Ladjal, Joseph Azencot, Michael Beuve, Etienne Testa, and Behzad Shariat declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratoire d’InfoRmatique en Image et Systèmes d’information LIRIS; CNRS UMR 5205, Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1, 69622 , Villeurbanne, France

    Petru Manescu, Hamid Ladjal, Joseph Azencot & Behzad Shariat

  2. Institut de Physique Nucléaire de Lyon IPNL; IN2P3/CNRS, UMR 5822, Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1, 69622 , Villeurbanne, France

    Hamid Ladjal, Michael Beuve & Etienne Testa

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  1. Petru Manescu
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Correspondence to Hamid Ladjal.

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Manescu, P., Ladjal, H., Azencot, J. et al. Four-dimensional radiotherapeutic dose calculation using biomechanical respiratory motion description. Int J CARS 9, 449–457 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11548-013-0935-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11548-013-0935-2

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