Stereotactic imaging for radiotherapy: accuracy of CT, MRI, PET and SPECT

CT, MRI, PET and SPECT provide complementary information for treatment planning in stereotactic radiotherapy. Stereotactic correlation of these images requires commissioning tests to confirm the localization accuracy of each modality. A phantom was developed to measure the accuracy of stereotactic localization for CT, MRI, PET and SPECT in the head and neck region. To this end. the stereotactically measured coordinates of structures within the phantom were compared with their mechanically defined coordinates. For MRI, PET and SPECT, measurements were performed using two different devices. For MRI, T1- and T2-weighted imaging sequences were applied. For each measurement, the mean radial deviation in space between the stereotactically measured and mechanically defined position of target points was determined. For CT, the mean radial deviation was 0.4 +/- 0.2 mm. For MRI, the mean deviations ranged between 0.7 +/- 0.2 mm and 1.4 +/- 0.5 mm, depending on the MRI device and the imaging sequence. For PET, mean deviations of 1.1 +/- 0.5 mm and 2.4 +/- 0.3 mm were obtained. The mean deviations for SPECT were 1.6 +/- 0.5 mm and 2.0 +/- 0.6 mm. The phantom is well suited to determine the accuracy of stereotactic localization with CT, MRI, PET and SPECT in the head and neck region. The obtained accuracy is well below the physical resolution for CT, PET and SPECT, and of comparable magnitude for MRI. Since the localization accuracy may be device dependent, results obtained at one device cannot be generalized to others.