Automated scripting of the dosimetric evaluation of adaptive versus non-adaptive radiotherapy

Objective. To quantify the benefit of adaptive radiotherapy over non-adaptive radiotherapy it is useful to extract and compare dosimetric features of patient treatments in both scenarios. This requires Image-Guided Radiotherapy (IGRT) matching of baseline planning to adaptive fraction imaging, followed by extraction of relevant dose metrics. This can be impractical to retrospectively perform manually for multiple patients.Approach. Here we present an algorithm for automatic IGRT matching of baseline planning with fraction imaging and performing automated dosimetric feature extraction from adaptive and non-adaptive treatment plans, thereby allowing comparison of the two scenarios. This workflow can be done in an entirely automated way via scripting solutions given structure and dose Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine (DICOM) files from baseline and adaptive fractions. We validate this algorithm against the results of manual IGRT matching. We also demonstrate automated dosimetric feature extraction. Lastly, we combine these two scripting solutions to extract daily adaptive and non-adaptive radiotherapy dosimetric features from an initial cohort of patients treated on an MRI guided linear accelerator (MR-LINAC).Results.Our results demonstrate that automated feature extraction and IGRT matching was successful and comparable to results performed by a manual operator. We have therefore demonstrated a method for easy analysis of patients treated on an adaptive radiotherapy platform.Significance.We believe that this scripting solution can be used for quantifying the benefits of adaptive therapy and for comparing adaptive therapy against various non-adaptive IGRT scenarios (e.g. 6 degree of freedom couch rotation).