Grace Tang

Commissioning and Quality Assurance of RapidArc Radiotherapy Delivery System

PURPOSE The Varian RapidArc is a system for intensity-modulated radiotherapy (IMRT) treatment planning and delivery. RapidArc incorporates capabilities such as variable dose-rate, variable gantry speed, and accurate and fast dynamic multileaf collimators (DMLC), to optimize dose conformality, delivery efficiency, accuracy and reliability. We developed RapidArc system commissioning and quality assurance (QA) procedures. METHODS AND MATERIALS Tests have been designed that evaluate RapidArc performance in a stepwise manner. First, the accuracy of DMLC position during gantry rotation is examined. Second, the ability to vary and control the dose-rate and gantry speed is evaluated. Third, the combined use of variable DMLC speed and dose-rate is studied. RESULTS Adapting the picket fence test for RapidArc, we compared the patterns obtained with stationary gantry and in RapidArc mode, and showed that the effect of gantry rotation on leaf accuracy was minimal (< or =0.2 mm). We then combine different dose-rates (111-600 MU/min), gantry speeds (5.5-4.3 degrees /s), and gantry range (Deltatheta = 90-12.9 degrees ) to give the same dose to seven parts of a film. When normalized to a corresponding open field (to account for flatness and asymmetry), the dose of the seven portions show good agreement, with a mean deviation of 0.7%. In assessing DMLC speed (0.46, 0.92, 1.84, and 2.76 cm/s) during RapidArc, the analysis of designed radiation pattern indicates good agreement, with a mean deviation of 0.4%. CONCLUSIONS The results of these tests provide strong evidence that DMLC movement, variable dose-rates and gantry speeds can be precisely controlled during RapidArc.

Intensity-modulated arc therapy: principles, technologies and clinical implementation

Intensity-modulated arc therapy (IMAT) was proposed by Yu (1995 Phys. Med. Biol. 40 1435-49) as an alternative to tomotherapy. Over more than a decade, much progress has been made. The advantages and limitations of the IMAT technique have also been better understood. In recent years, single-arc forms of IMAT have emerged and become commercially adopted. The leading example is the volumetric-modulated arc therapy (VMAT), a single-arc form of IMAT that delivers apertures of varying weights with a single-arc rotation that uses dose-rate variation of the treatment machine. With commercial implementation of VMAT, wide clinical adoption has quickly taken root. However, there remains a lack of general understanding for the planning of such arc treatments, as well as what delivery limitations and compromises are made. Commercial promotion and competition add further confusion for the end users. It is therefore necessary to provide a summary of this technology and some guidelines on its clinical implementation. The purpose of this review is to provide a summary of the works from the radiotherapy community that led to wide clinical adoption, and point out the issues that still remain, providing some perspective on its further developments. Because there has been vast experience in IMRT using multiple intensity-modulated fields, comparisons between IMAT and IMRT are also made in the review within the areas of planning, delivery and quality assurance.

Arc-modulated radiation therapy (AMRT) : a single-arc form of intensity-modulated arc therapy

Arc-modulated radiation therapy (AMRT) is a novel rotational intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) technique developed for a clinical linear accelerator that aims to deliver highly conformal radiation treatment using just one arc of gantry rotation. Compared to fixed-gantry IMRT and the multiple-arc intensity-modulated arc therapy (IMAT) techniques, AMRT promises the same treatment quality with a single-arc delivery. In this paper, we present a treatment planning scheme for AMRT, which addresses the challenges in inverse planning, leaf sequencing and dose calculation. The feasibility and performance of this AMRT treatment planning scheme have been verified with multiple clinical cases of various sites on Varian linear accelerators.

COMPARING RADIATION TREATMENTS USING INTENSITY-MODULATED BEAMS, MULTIPLE ARCS, AND SINGLE ARCS

PURPOSE A dosimetric comparison of multiple static-field intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT), multiarc intensity-modulated arc therapy (IMAT), and single-arc arc-modulated radiation therapy (AMRT) was performed to evaluate their clinical advantages and shortcomings. METHODS AND MATERIALS Twelve cases were selected for this study, including three head-and-neck, three brain, three lung, and three prostate cases. An IMRT, IMAT, and AMRT plan was generated for each of the cases, with clinically relevant planning constraints. For a fair comparison, the same parameters were used for the IMRT, IMAT, and AMRT planning for each patient. RESULTS Multiarc IMAT provided the best plan quality, while single-arc AMRT achieved dose distributions comparable to those of IMRT, especially in the complicated head-and-neck and brain cases. Both AMRT and IMAT showed effective normal tissue sparing without compromising target coverage and delivered a lower total dose to the surrounding normal tissues in some cases. CONCLUSIONS IMAT provides the most uniform and conformal dose distributions, especially for the cases with large and complex targets, but with a delivery time similar to that of IMRT; whereas AMRT achieves results comparable to IMRT with significantly faster treatment delivery.

Helical Tomotherapy Versus Single-Arc Intensity-Modulated Arc Therapy: A Collaborative Dosimetric Comparison Between Two Institutions

PURPOSE Both helical tomotherapy (HT) and single-arc intensity-modulated arc therapy (IMAT) deliver radiation using rotational beams with multileaf collimators. We report a dual-institution study comparing dosimetric aspects of these two modalities. METHODS AND MATERIALS Eight patients each were selected from the University of Maryland (UMM) and the University of Wisconsin Cancer Center Riverview (UWR), for a total of 16 cases. Four cancer sites including brain, head and neck (HN), lung, and prostate were selected. Single-arc IMAT plans were generated at UMM using Varian RapidArc (RA), and HT plans were generated at UWR using Hi-Art II TomoTherapy. All 16 cases were planned based on the identical anatomic contours, prescriptions, and planning objectives. All plans were swapped for analysis at the same time after final approval. Dose indices for targets and critical organs were compared based on dose-volume histograms, the beam-on time, monitor units, and estimated leakage dose. After the disclosure of comparison results, replanning was done for both techniques to minimize diversity in optimization focus from different operators. RESULTS For the 16 cases compared, the average beam-on time was 1.4 minutes for RA and 4.8 minutes for HT plans. HT provided better target dose homogeneity (7.6% for RA and 4.2% for HT) with a lower maximum dose (110% for RA and 105% for HT). Dose conformation numbers were comparable, with RA being superior to HT (0.67 vs. 0.60). The doses to normal tissues using these two techniques were comparable, with HT showing lower doses for more critical structures. After planning comparison results were exchanged, both techniques demonstrated improvements in dose distributions or treatment delivery times. CONCLUSIONS Both techniques created highly conformal plans that met or exceeded the planning goals. The delivery time and total monitor units were lower in RA than in HT plans, whereas HT provided higher target dose uniformity.

Variable dose rate single-arc IMAT delivered with a constant dose rate and variable angular spacing

Single-arc intensity-modulated arc therapy (IMAT) has gained worldwide interest in both research and clinical implementation due to its superior plan quality and delivery efficiency. Single-arc IMAT techniques such as the Varian RapidArc deliver conformal dose distributions to the target in one single gantry rotation, resulting in a delivery time in the order of 2 min. The segments in these techniques are evenly distributed within an arc and are allowed to have different monitor unit (MU) weightings. Therefore, a variable dose-rate (VDR) is required for delivery. Because the VDR requirement complicates the control hardware and software of the linear accelerators (linacs) and prevents most existing linacs from delivering IMAT, we propose an alternative planning approach for IMAT using constant dose-rate (CDR) delivery with variable angular spacing. We prove the equivalence by converting VDR-optimized RapidArc plans to CDR plans, where the evenly spaced beams in the VDR plan are redistributed to uneven spacing such that the segments with larger MU weighting occupy a greater angular interval. To minimize perturbation in the optimized dose distribution, the angular deviation of the segments was restricted to </=+/- 5 degrees . This restriction requires the treatment arc to be broken into multiple sectors such that the local MU fluctuation within each sector is reduced, thereby lowering the angular deviation of the segments during redistribution. The converted CDR plans were delivered with a single gantry sweep as in the VDR plans but each sector was delivered with a different value of CDR. For four patient cases, including two head-and-neck, one brain and one prostate, all CDR plans developed with the variable spacing scheme produced similar dose distributions to the original VDR plans. For plans with complex angular MU distributions, the number of sectors increased up to four in the CDR plans in order to maintain the original plan quality. Since each sector was delivered with a different dose rate, extra mode-up time (xMOT) was needed between the transitions of the successive sectors during delivery. On average, the delivery times of the CDR plans were approximately less than 1 min longer than the treatment times of the VDR plans, with an average of about 0.33 min of xMOT per sector transition. The results have shown that VDR may not be necessary for single-arc IMAT. Using variable angular spacing, VDR RapidArc plans can be implemented into the clinics that are not equipped with the new VDR-enabled machines without compromising the plan quality or treatment efficiency. With a prospective optimization approach using variable angular spacing, CDR delivery times can be further minimized while maintaining the high delivery efficiency of single-arc IMAT treatment.

Stochastic versus deterministic kernel-based superposition approaches for dose calculation of intensity-modulated arcs

Dose calculations for radiation arc therapy are traditionally performed by approximating continuous delivery arcs with multiple static beams. For 3D conformal arc treatments, the shape and weight variation per degree is usually small enough to allow arcs to be approximated by static beams separated by 5 degrees -10 degrees . But with intensity-modulated arc therapy (IMAT), the variation in shape and dose per degree can be large enough to require a finer angular spacing. With the increase in the number of beams, a deterministic dose calculation method, such as collapsed-cone convolution/superposition, will require proportionally longer computational times, which may not be practical clinically. We propose to use a homegrown Monte Carlo kernel-superposition technique (MCKS) to compute doses for rotational delivery. The IMAT plans were generated with 36 static beams, which were subsequently interpolated into finer angular intervals for dose calculation to mimic the continuous arc delivery. Since MCKS uses random sampling of photons, the dose computation time only increased insignificantly for the interpolated-static-beam plans that may involve up to 720 beams. Ten past IMRT cases were selected for this study. Each case took approximately 15-30 min to compute on a single CPU running Mac OS X using the MCKS method. The need for a finer beam spacing is dictated by how fast the beam weights and aperture shapes change between the adjacent static planning beam angles. MCKS, however, obviates the concern by allowing hundreds of beams to be calculated in practically the same time as for a few beams. For more than 43 beams, MCKS usually takes less CPU time than the collapsed-cone algorithm used by the Pinnacle(3) planning system.

Visual Analysis of the Daily QA Results of Photon and Electron Beams of a Trilogy Linac over a Five-Year Period

Data visualization technique was applied to analyze the daily QA results of photon and electron beams. Special attention was paid to any trend the beams might display. A Varian Trilogy Linac equipped with dual photon energies and five electron energies was commissioned in early 2010. Daily Linac QA tests including the output constancy, beam flatness and symmetry (radial and transverse directions) were performed with an ionization chamber array device (QA BeamChecker Plus, Standard Imaging). The data of five years were collected and analyzed. For each energy, the measured data were exported and processed for visual trending using an in-house Matlab program. These daily data were cross-correlated with the monthly QA and annual QA results, as well as the preventive maintenance records. Majority of the output were within 1% of variation, with a consistent positive/upward drift for all seven energies (~+0.25% per month). The baseline of daily device is reset annually right after the TG-51 calibration. This results in a sudden drop of the output. On the other hand, the large amount of data using the same baseline exhibits a sinusoidal behavior (cycle = 12 months; amplitude = 0.8%, 0.5% for photons, electrons, respectively) on symmetry and flatness when normalization of baselines is accounted for. The well known phenomenon of new Linac output drift was clearly displayed. This output drift was a result of the air leakage of the over-pressurized sealed monitor chambers for the specific vendor. Data visualization is a new trend in the era of big data in radiation oncology research. It allows the data to be displayed visually and therefore more intuitive. Based on the visual display from the past, the physicist might predict the trend of the Linac and take actions proactively. It also makes comparisons, alerts failures, and potentially identifies causalities.

Intrafractional 3D localization using kilovoltage digital tomosynthesis for sliding-window intensity modulated radiation therapy

To implement novel imaging sequences integrated into intensity modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) and determine 3D positions for intrafractional patient motion monitoring and management.In one method, we converted a static gantry IMRT beam into a series of arcs in which dose index and multileaf collimator positions for all control points were unchanged, but gantry angles were modified to oscillate ± 3° around the original angle. Kilovoltage (kV) projections were acquired continuously throughout delivery and reconstructed to provide a series of 6° arc digital tomosynthesis (DTS) images which served to evaluate the in-plane positions of embedded-fiducials/vertebral-body. To obtain out-of-plane positions via triangulation, a 20° gantry rotation with beam hold-off was inserted during delivery to produce a pair of 6° DTS images separated by 14°. In a second method, the gantry remained stationary, but both kV source and detector moved over a 15° longitudinal arc using pitch and translational adjustment of the robotic arms. Evaluation of localization accuracy in an anthropomorphic Rando phantom during simulated intrafractional motion used programmed couch translations from customized scripts. Purpose-built software was used to reconstruct DTS images, register them to reference template images and calculate 3D fiducial positions.No significant dose difference (<0.5%) was found between the original and converted IMRT beams. For a typical hypofractionated spine treatment, 200 single DTS (6° arc) and 10 paired DTS (20° arc) images were acquired for each IMRT beam, providing in-plane and out-of-plane monitoring every 1.6 and 34.5 s, respectively. Mean ± standard deviation error in predicted position was -0.3 ± 0.2 mm, -0.1 ± 0.1 mm in-plane, and 0.2 ± 0.4 mm out-of-plane with rotational gantry, 0.8 ± 0.1 mm, -0.7 ± 0.3 mm in-plane and 1.1 ± 0.1 mm out-of-plane with translational source/detector.Acquiring 3D fiducial positions from kV-DTS during fixed gantry IMRT is technically feasible, and is capable of providing reliable guidance for intrafractional patient motion management.

SU‐FF‐T‐235: Patient‐Specific QA of Intensity‐Modulated Arc Therapy with 2D Diode Array: Initial Experience

Purpose: New rotational intensity‐modulated radiation therapy(IMRT) or intensity‐modulated arc therapy (IMAT) techniques using single or multiple arcs are attaining widespread adoption in clinic due to their superior delivery efficiency. This study evaluates the use of a 2D diode array for patient‐specific QA for such techniques with the Varian RapidArc™. Method and Materials: A RapidArc plan conforming to the clinical standards was generated for each case using Eclipse treatment planning system (Varian Medical Systems, Palo Alto, CA). A verification plan was subsequently created for each of the treatment plans with the water‐equivalent MapPHAN™ QA phantom, with the MapCHECK™ (Sun Nuclear Corporations, Melbourne, FL) embedded at 5 cm depth, measuring the coronal dose plane in integration mode. Twenty‐one cases were selected in this study including 2 brain, 11 head‐and‐neck (HN), 4 prostate, and 4 whole pelvis cases. The measured 2D dose distributions were then compared to that calculated by Eclipse using (i) gamma analysis with the acceptance criteria of 3%/3mm, and (ii) absolute point dose difference. Results: For all cases, the average passing rate for the gamma analysis was 98.2% (range: 95.3% – 100%) and the absolute point dose difference was 2.1% (range: 0%–3.9%). The total time taken for the QA process was approximately 10 – 15 minutes, including setup, plan delivery, and online analysis. Conclusions: Preliminary results have shown that a 2D diode array is an efficient method for RapidArc patient‐specific QA, proving that the MapCHECK/MapPHAN is capable of performing both absolute and relative dose comparisons with a satisfactory accuracy for clinical practices. Research sponsored by Varian Medical Systems.