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Updated: May 16, 2026
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Treatment of Liver Metastases Using an Internal Target Volume Method for Stereotactic Body Radiotherapy
Published on: May 8, 2018
Reliability of contour-based volume calculation for radiosurgery.
Lijun Ma1, Arjun Sahgal, Ke Nie
1Department of Radiation Oncology, University of California, San Francisco, CA 94143, USA. lijunma@radonc.ucsf.edu
Journal of Neurosurgery
|December 5, 2012
Summary
Stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS) platforms show significant variations in calculating target volumes. This variability, especially for smaller targets, necessitates rigorous quality assurance for accurate cancer treatment planning and multi-institutional studies.
Area of Science:
- Medical Physics
- Radiation Oncology
- Image Analysis
Background:
- Accurate target volume determination is crucial for stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS) prescription and evaluation.
- Current SRS treatment planning platforms rely on contour-based volume calculations.
Purpose of the Study:
- To assess the reliability of volume calculations across major SRS treatment planning platforms.
- To identify variations in contour-based volume computations among different SRS systems.
Main Methods:
- Spherical phantoms and patient brain metastasis datasets were used for the study.
- Contour data from imaging studies were exported to six SRS platforms for volume calculation.
- An independent analysis using ten algorithms was performed on phantom and patient data.
Main Results:
- Significant volume calculation variations were observed across SRS platforms, ranging from -3.6% to 22% for phantoms and 1.0% to 10.2% for patient cases.
- Most SRS systems and algorithms overestimated sphere volumes compared to physical measurements.
- Variability was more pronounced for small objects (< 0.4 cm³) and those near scan limits.
Conclusions:
- Substantial discrepancies in volume calculations exist among current SRS systems.
- There is a critical need for stringent quality assurance and benchmarking when implementing SRS systems.
- Standardization is essential for reliable multi-institutional SRS clinical studies.
