1. Individualized evaluation of the total dose received by radiotherapy patients: Integrating in-field, out-of-field, and imaging doses.
- Author
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Romero-Expósito M, Sánchez-Nieto B, Riveira-Martin M, Azizi M, Gkavonatsiou A, Muñoz I, López-Martínez IN, Espinoza I, Zelada G, Córdova-Bernhardt A, Norrlid O, Goldkuhl C, Molin D, Sánchez FM, López-Medina A, Toma-Dasu I, and Dasu A
- Subjects
- Humans, Male, Prostatic Neoplasms radiotherapy, Prostatic Neoplasms diagnostic imaging, Precision Medicine, Radiation Dosage, Photons therapeutic use, Proton Therapy methods, Risk Assessment, Organs at Risk radiation effects, Radiotherapy Dosage, Radiotherapy Planning, Computer-Assisted methods, Monte Carlo Method
- Abstract
Purpose: To propose a methodology for integrating the out-of-field and imaging doses to the in-field dose received by radiotherapy (RT) patients. In addition, the impact of considering the total dose in planning and radiation-induced second malignancies (RISM) risk assessment will be evaluated in several scenarios comprising photon and proton treatments., Methods: The total dose is the voxel-wise sum of the doses from the different radiation sources (accounting for the radiobiological effectiveness) produced during the whole RT chain. The dose from the plan and imaging procedures were obtained by measurements for a photon prostate treatment and by calculation (combining treatment planning system, analytical models, and Monte Carlo simulations) for two lymphoma treatments, one using photons and the other, protons. Dose distributions, dose volume histograms (DVHs) metrics, mean organ doses, and RISM risks were evaluated for each radiation exposure in each treatment., Results: In general, the contribution of the imaging doses is low compared to the dose administered during RT treatment, being higher in proton therapy. However, for some organs, for instance testes in the prostate case, the imaging dose becomes higher than the scattered dose from the treatment fields. Plan evaluations revealed shifts in cumulative DVHs with the inclusion of out-of-field and imaging doses, though minimal clinical impact is expected. Risk assessment showed increased estimates with total dose., Conclusions: The methodology enables accounting for the total dose for optimization of plans and imaging protocols, prospective risk predictions and retrospective epidemiological analyses., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 Associazione Italiana di Fisica Medica e Sanitaria. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)
- Published
- 2025
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