Effect of edema, relative biological effectiveness, and dose heterogeneity on prostate brachytherapy

Many factors influence response in low-dose-rate (LDR) brachytherapy of prostate cancer. Among them, edema, relative biological effectiveness (RBE), and dose heterogeneity have not been fully modeled previously. In this work, the generalized linear-quadratic (LQ) model, extended to account for the effects of edema, RBE, and dose heterogeneity, was used to assess these factors and their combination effect. Published clinical data have shown that prostate edema after seed implant has a magnitude (ratio of post- to preimplant volume) of 1.3-2.0 and resolves exponentially with a half-life of 4-25 days over the duration of the implant dose delivery. Based on these parameters and a representative dose-volume histogram (DVH), we investigated the influence of edema on the implant dose distribution. The LQ parameters (alpha=0.15 Gy(-1) and alpha/beta=3.1 Gy) determined in earlier studies were used to calculate the equivalent uniform dose in 2 Gy fractions (EUD2) with respect to three effects: edema, RBE, and dose heterogeneity for 125I and 103Pd implants. The EUD2 analysis shows a negative effect of edema and dose heterogeneity on tumor cell killing because the prostate edema degrades the dose coverage to tumor target. For the representative DVH, the V100 (volume covered by 100% of prescription dose) decreases from 93% to 91% and 86%, and the D90 (dose covering 90% of target volume) decrease from 107% to 102% and 94% of prescription dose for 125I and 103Pd implants, respectively. Conversely, the RBE effect of LDR brachytherapy [versus external-beam radiotherapy (EBRT) and high-dose-rate (HDR) brachytherapy] enhances dose effect on tumor cell kill. In order to balance the negative effects of edema and dose heterogeneity, the RBE of prostate brachytherapy was determined to be approximately 1.2-1.4 for 125I and 1.3-1.6 for 103Pd implants. These RBE values are consistent with the RBE data published in the literature. These results may explain why in earlier modeling studies, when the effects of edema, dose heterogeneity, and RBE were all ignored simultaneously, prostate LDR brachytherapy was reported to show an overall similar dose effect as EBRT and HDR brachytherapy, which are independent of edema and RBE effects and have a better dose coverage.