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Published on: July 29, 2013
Evaluating the impact of possible interobserver variability in CBCT-based soft-tissue matching using TCP/NTCP models
Xiangbin Zhang1, Xin Wang1, Xiaoyu Li1
1Division of Radiation Physics, Department of Radiotherapy, State Key Laboratory of Biotherapy and Cancer Center, West China Hospital, Sichuan University, Chengdu, 610041, People's Republic of China.
Background:
Prostate alignment is subject to interobserver variability in cone-beam CT (CBCT)-based soft-tissue matching. This study aims to analyze the impact of possible interobserver variability in CBCT-based soft-tissue matching for prostate cancer radiotherapy.
Methods:
Retrospective data, consisting of 156 CBCT images from twelve prostate cancer patients with elective nodal irradiation were analyzed in this study. To simulate possible interobserver variability, couch shifts of 2 mm relative to the resulting patient position of prostate alignment were assumed as potential patient positions (27 possibilities). For each CBCT, the doses of the potential patient positions were re-calculated using deformable image registration-based synthetic CT. The impact of the simulated interobserver variability was evaluated using tumor control probabilities (TCPs) and normal tissue complication probabilities (NTCPs).
Results:
No significant differences in TCPs were found between prostate alignment and potential patient positions (0.944 ± 0.003 vs 0.945 ± 0.003, P = 0.117). The average NTCPs of the rectum ranged from 5.16 to 7.29 (%) among the potential patient positions and were highly influenced by the couch shift in the anterior-posterior direction. In contrast, the average NTCPs of the bladder ranged from 0.75 to 1.12 (%) among the potential patient positions and were relatively negligible.
Conclusions:
The NTCPs of the rectum, rather than the TCPs of the target, were highly influenced by the interobserver variability in CBCT-based soft-tissue matching. This study provides a theoretical explanation for daily CBCT-based image guidance and the prostate-rectum interface matching procedure.
Trial Registration:
Not applicable.
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