Feasibility of MR-guided radiotherapy using beam-eye-view 2D-cine with tumor-volume projection

Current magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) guided radiotherapy (MRgRT) applies sagittal/coronal 2D-cine to monitor major tumor motions, however, the beam eye's view (BEV) with volumetric tumor projection would be the best measure for radiation beam conformality, independent of tumor through-plane motion. The goal is to assess the feasibility, accuracy, and performance of the BEV approach.

Beam-specific BEV 2D-cine with volume-projected tumor contours were simulated to establish a 2D/3D tumor match against a tumor-motion library based on multi-breath time-resolved (TR) 4DMRI images. Two BEV-library-matching methods were developed: (1) fast screening with tumor center-of-mass (∆COM), in-plane area ratio, and DICE similarity, and finalizing with the highest DICE score and (2) DICE screening for top-3 candidates and finalizing with rigid registration. A 4D-XCAT digital phantom and 8 lung-cancer patients were used for assessment. For each patient, 3 sets of 40 s TR-4DMRI were acquired at 2 Hz and 6 representative BEV were created with the isocenter set at tumor COM in mid-respiration. One TR-4DMRI set (40 × 2 = 80-images) was used to simulate BEV 2D-cine and the other two (160-images) were used to create a library. The matching result was validated against the ground truth within the test set. Using a leave-one-out strategy, the success rate, accuracy, and speed of tumor matching were assessed for volume-projected tumors over 11520 time-points (=8patients•3sets•80images•6BEVs).

Volume-projected tumor contour area on the 6 BEVs varies by 60% ± 8% and [Formula: see text] (in-plane/volume-projected) varies by 82% ± 9%. The [Formula: see text] changes with tumor shape, orientation, and through-plane motion. Method-1 produces 96% matching success (ΔCOM = 0.7 ± 0.2 mm, [Formula: see text]=1.01 ± 0.02, Dice=0.92 ± 0.02) with the computational time of 15 ± 1 ms/match, while method-2 produces 94% ± 1% success (ΔCOM = 0.2 ± 0.1 mm, [Formula: see text]=1.00 ± 0.01, Dice = 0.94 ± 0.02) with 223 ± 13 ms/match.

This study has demonstrated the feasibility, accuracy, and benefits of BEV 2D-cine imaging with tumor-volume projection, allowing real-time tumor motion monitoring and beam conformality checking. Further clinical evaluation is necessary before MRgRT applications.