The use of functional imaging in radiotherapy treatment (RT) planning requires accurate co-registration of functional imaging scans to CT scans. We evaluated six methods of image registration for use in SPECT-guided radiotherapy treatment planning. Methods varied in complexity from 3D affine transform based on control points to diffeomorphic demons and level set non-rigid registration. Ten lung...

BACKGROUND Inclusion of inhomogeneity corrections in intensity modulated small fields always makes conformal irradiation of lung tumor very complicated in accurate dose delivery. OBJECTIVE In the present study, the performance of five algorithms via Monte Carlo, Pencil Beam, Convolution, Fast Superposition and Superposition were evaluated in lung cancer Intensity Modulated Radiotherapy planni...

OBJECTIVE The purpose of the work was to estimate the dose received by the heart throughout a course of breath-holding breast radiotherapy. METHODS 113 cone-beam CT (CBCT) scans were acquired for 20 patients treated within the HeartSpare 1A study, in which both an active breathing control (ABC) device and a voluntary breath-hold (VBH) method were used. Predicted mean heart doses were obtained...

BACKGROUND The choice of any radiotherapy treatment plan is usually made after the evaluation of a few preliminary isodose distributions obtained from different beam configurations. Despite considerable advances in planning techniques, such final decision remains a challenging task that would greatly benefit from efficient and reliable assessment tools. METHODS For any dosimetric plan conside...

The purpose of this study was to determine the impact of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) geometric distortions when using MRI for target delineation and planning for whole-breast, intensity-modulated radiotherapy (IMRT). Residual system distortions and combined systematic and patient-induced distortions are considered. This retrospective study investigated 18 patients who underwent whole-breas...

Highly targeted treatment planning is at the foundation of successful radiotherapy. With its superb and tunable soft-tissue contrast, MRI has in recent years emerged as an imaging modality to drive delineation accuracy of targets and organs at risk. With the introduction of the fi rst commercially available MR-only simulation package, Philips continues to pave the way for the adoption and imple...

The authors describe a low-cost CT scanner integrated with a radiotherapy simulator and designed for treatment planning. The standard rotational gantry and x-ray tube of the simulator are used with a multiwire xenon lonization chamber and simple current-proportional readout system to measure patient attenuation, avoiding problems associated with diagnostic CT scanners in treatment planning. Al...

INTRODUCTION Medical imaging provides information for diagnosis and staging, evaluation of treatment response, and also plays pivotal role in advanced radiotherapy treatment planning. In the era of the innovative conventional and functional imaging techniques, the main goal of radiation therapy, which is to maximize the dose to the target while minimizing the dose to adjacent healthy organs, ca...