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Investigating different computed tomography techniques for internal target volume definition
SA Yoganathan1, KJ Maria Das1, V Siva Subramanian2, D Gowtham Raj1, Arpita Agarwal1, Shaleen Kumar1
1 Department of Radiotherapy, Sanjay Gandhi Postgraduate Institute of Medical Sciences, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India
2 School of Physics, Bharathidasan University, Tiruchirappalli, Tamil Nadu, India
Correspondence Address:
SA Yoganathan,
Department of Radiotherapy, Sanjay Gandhi Postgraduate Institute of Medical Sciences, Rae Bareli Road, Lucknow - 226 014, Uttar Pradesh
India
 Source of Support: None, Conflict of Interest: None
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Purpose: The aim of this work was to evaluate the various computed tomography (CT) techniques such as fast CT, slow CT, breath-hold (BH) CT, full-fan cone beam CT (FF-CBCT), half-fan CBCT (HF-CBCT), and average CT for delineation of internal target volume (ITV). In addition, these ITVs were compared against four-dimensional CT (4DCT) ITVs.
Materials and Methods: Three-dimensional target motion was simulated using dynamic thorax phantom with target insert of diameter 3 cm for ten respiration data. CT images were acquired using a commercially available multislice CT scanner, and the CBCT images were acquired using On-Board-Imager. Average CT was generated by averaging 10 phases of 4DCT. ITVs were delineated for each CT by contouring the volume of the target ball; 4DCT ITVs were generated by merging all 10 phases target volumes. Incase of BH-CT, ITV was derived by boolean of CT phases 0%, 50%, and fast CT target volumes.
Results: ITVs determined by all CT and CBCT scans were significantly smaller (P < 0.05) than the 4DCT ITV, whereas there was no significant difference between average CT and 4DCT ITVs (P = 0.17). Fast CT had the maximum deviation (−46.1% ± 20.9%) followed by slow CT (−34.3% ± 11.0%) and FF-CBCT scans (−26.3% ± 8.7%). However, HF-CBCT scans (−12.9% ± 4.4%) and BH-CT scans (−11.1% ± 8.5%) resulted in almost similar deviation. On the contrary, average CT had the least deviation (−4.7% ± 9.8%).
Conclusions: When comparing with 4DCT, all the CT techniques underestimated ITV. In the absence of 4DCT, the HF-CBCT target volumes with appropriate margin may be a reasonable approach for defining the ITV. |
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