Determination and application of the reference isodose length (RIL) for commercial endovascular brachytherapy devices

During the last years endovascular brachytherapy has been established as a new field in radiotherapy. In a recent recommendation of the EndoVAscular, Groupe Européen de Curiethérapie, European Society for Therapeutic Radiation Oncology, Working Group the reference isodose length (RIL) has been introduced as a central parameter for treatment planning. It is defined as the vessel length at the reference depth enclosed by the 90% isodose. The dose is normalized to 100% at the reference depth (i.e. lumen radius plus 1 mm into the vessel wall) at the central plane. In order to avoid a geographic miss the clinical target length has to be encompassed by the RIL.

RILs are determined by Monte Carlo calculations and GafChromic film dosimetry for three endovascular brachytherapy devices currently in clinical use (192Ir seed ribbon, 32P wire source, 90Sr seed train). For all measurements, phantoms and devices the sensitive layer of GafChromic film is located in a plane at 2+/-0.1 mm parallel to the axis of the source delivery catheter. The EGSnrc code system is applied to calculate the dose profile at 2 and 3 mm distance from the source axis.

For the ten seed 192Ir source calculated RIL at 2 mm radial distance is 30.2 mm whereas the measured RIL is 33.5 mm. In case of a 20 mm 32P wire source with two steps the calculated RIL of 36.6 mm shows excellent agreement compared with the measured value of 36.2 mm. The calculated RIL of a 40 mm 90Sr seed train was 35.8 mm compared to a measured value of 34.8 mm.

As a compromise between calculated and measured RIL values at 2 and 3 mm radial distances we propose to use a RIL of 30 mm for the 192Ir ten seed ribbon, 36 mm for the32P wire source with two steps and 35 mm for the 40 mm 90Sr seed train. These parameter values can be used to define the maximum intervention length for endovascular sources.