Clinical implementation of dose-volume histogram predictions for organs-at-risk in IMRT planning

K. L. Moore, L. M. Appenzoller, J. Tan, J. M. Michalski, W. L. Thorstad, S. Mutic

Research output: Contribution to journalConference articlepeer-review

14 Scopus citations

Abstract

True quality control (QC) of the planning process requires quantitative assessments of treatment plan quality itself, and QC in IMRT has been stymied by intra-patient anatomical variability and inherently complex three-dimensional dose distributions. In this work we describe the development of an automated system to reduce clinical IMRT planning variability and improve plan quality using mathematical models that predict achievable OAR DVHs based on individual patient anatomy. These models rely on the correlation of expected dose to the minimum distance from a voxel to the PTV surface, whereby a three-parameter probability distribution function (PDF) was used to model iso-distance OAR subvolume dose distributions. DVH models were obtained by fitting the evolution of the PDF with distance. Initial validation on clinical cohorts of 40 prostate and 24 head-and-neck plans demonstrated highly accurate model-based predictions for achievable DVHs in rectum, bladder, and parotid glands. By quantifying the integrated difference between candidate DVHs and predicted DVHs, the models correctly identified plans with under-spared OARs, validated by replanning all cases and correlating any realized improvements against the predicted gains. Clinical implementation of these predictive models was demonstrated in the PINNACLE treatment planning system by use of existing margin expansion utilities and the scripting functionality inherent to the system. To maintain independence from specific planning software, a system was developed in MATLAB to directly process DICOM-RT data. Both model training and patient-specific analyses were demonstrated with significant computational accelerations from parallelization.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Article number012055
JournalJournal of Physics: Conference Series
Volume489
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - 2014
Event17th International Conference on the Use of Computers in Radiation Therapy, ICCR 2013 - Melbourne, VIC, Australia
Duration: May 6 2013May 9 2013

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General Physics and Astronomy

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Clinical implementation of dose-volume histogram predictions for organs-at-risk in IMRT planning'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this