Co-registration of cone beam CT and planning CT in head and neck IMRT dose estimation: a feasible adaptive...

To investigate if cone beam CT (CBCT) can be used to estimate the delivered dose in head and neck intensity-modulated radiotherapy (IMRT).

15 patients (10 without replan and 5 with replan) were identified retrospectively. Weekly CBCT was co-registered with original planning CT. Original high-dose clinical target volume (CTV1), low-dose CTV (CTV2), brainstem, spinal cord, parotids and external body contours were copied to each CBCT and modified to account for anatomical changes. Corresponding planning target volumes (PTVs) and planning organ-at-risk volumes were created. The original plan was applied and calculated using modified per-treatment volumes on the original CT. Percentage volumetric, cumulative (planned dose delivered prior to CBCT + adaptive dose delivered after CBCT) and actual delivered (summation of weekly adaptive doses) dosimetric differences between each per-treatment and original plan were calculated.

There was greater volumetric change in the parotids with an average weekly difference of between -4.1% and -27.0% compared with the CTVs/PTVs (-1.8% to -5.0%). The average weekly cumulative dosimetric differences were as follows: CTV/PTV (range, -3.0% to 2.2%), ipsilateral parotid volume receiving ≥26 Gy (V26) (range, 0.5-3.2%) and contralateral V26 (range, 1.9-6.3%). In patients who required replan, the average volumetric reductions were greater: CTV1 (-2.5%), CTV2 (-6.9%), PTV1 (-4.7%), PTV2 (-11.5%), ipsilateral (-10.4%) and contralateral parotids (-12.1%), but did not result in significant dosimetric changes.

The dosimetric changes during head and neck simultaneous integrated boost IMRT do not necessitate adaptive radiotherapy in most patients.

Our study shows that CBCT could be used for dose estimation during head and neck IMRT.