Dosimetric comparison of helical tomotherapy and VMAT for anal cancer: A single institutional experience

To compare the dosimetric results of helical tomotherapy (HT) and volumetric arc therapy (VMAT) in the treatment of anal cancer. Plans were created for 20 (n = 20) patients treated for anal cancer using HT and 2 arc VMAT. Dosimetric comparison was assessed for doses to targets and organs at risk (small bowel, bladder, external genitalia, and femoral heads). Delivery time and dosimetric verification results were also compared. HT showed a higher V95% for both primary and nodal targets (V95% increase by 0.5% to 1.3%; p = ≤0.05). No differences were seen in V105%, V107%, or V110 % between techniques. HT provided better sparing of the small bowel for dose levels V30, V35, and V40 (p = 0.005, 0.001, and 0.030), but was similar at higher doses. Similarly HT provided better bladder dose at V35 only (p = 0.020). Doses to femoral heads and genitalia were similar. Delivery time was higher for the HT plans (4.58 ± 1.1 min) than VMAT (3.13 ± 0.2 minutes) (p = 0.011). Dose verification results were 99.5 ± 0.9% and 100 ± 0% (HT, n = 6) vs 95.0 ± 3.1% and 99.2 ± 0.8% (VMAT, n = 20) for global gamma criteria 3%/3 mm and 4%/4 mm, respectively. Both HT and VMAT produced high quality plans that frequently met most of the dose objectives apart from genitalia V20, V40, bladder V35, and V50. Although absolute dose differences were small, the PTV V95%, small bowel V30, V35, and V40 and bladder V35 were statistically better in the HT plans. VMAT provided a shorter delivery time by 1.45 minutes; however, our HT plans were more likely to pass tighter plan dose verification criteria than VMAT.