A hybrid 2D/4D-MRI methodology using simultaneous multislice imaging for radiotherapy guidance

Respiratory motion management is important in abdominothoracic radiotherapy. Fast imaging of the tumor can facilitate multileaf collimator (MLC) tracking that allows for smaller treatment margins, while repeatedly imaging the full field-of-view is necessary for 4D dose accumulation. This study introduces a hybrid 2D/4D-MRI methodology that can be used for simultaneous MLC tracking and dose accumulation on a 1.5 T Unity MR-linac (Elekta AB, Stockholm, Sweden).

We developed a hybrid 2D/4D-MRI methodology that uses a simultaneous multislice (SMS) accelerated MRI sequence, which acquires two coronal slices simultaneously and repeatedly cycles through slice positions over the image volume. As a result, the fast 2D imaging can be used prospectively for MLC tracking and the SMS slices can be sorted retrospectively into respiratory-correlated 4D-MRIs for dose accumulation. Data were acquired in five healthy volunteers with an SMS-bTFE and SMS-TSE MRI sequence. For each sequence, a prebeam dataset and a beam-on dataset were acquired simulating the two phases of MR-linac treatments. Prebeam data were used to generate a 4D-based motion model and a reference mid-position volume, while beam-on data were used for real-time motion extraction and reconstruction of beam-on 4D-MRIs. In addition, an in-silico computational phantom was used for validation of the hybrid 2D/4D-MRI methodology. MLC tracking experiments were performed with the developed methodology, for which real-time SMS data reconstruction was enabled on the scanner. A 15-beam 8× 7.5 Gy intensity-modulated radiotherapy plan for lung stereotactic body radiotherapy with isotropic 3 mm GTV-to-PTV margins was created. Dosimetry experiments were performed using a 4D motion phantom. The latency between target motion and updating the radiation beam was determined and compensated. Local gamma analyses were performed to quantify dose differences compared to a static reference delivery, and dose area histograms (DAHs) were used to quantify the GTV and PTV coverage.

In-vivo data acquisition and MLC tracking experiments were successfully performed with the developed hybrid 2D/4D-MRI methodology. Real-time liver-lung interface motion estimation had a Pearson's correlation of 0.996 (in-vivo) and 0.998 (in-silico). A median (5th-95th percentile) error of 0.0 (-0.9 to 0.7) mm and 0.0 (-0.2 to 0.2) mm was found for real-time motion estimation for in-vivo and in-silico, respectively. Target motion prediction beyond the liver-lung interface had a median root mean square error of 1.6 mm (in-vivo) and 0.5 mm (in-silico). Beam-on 4D MRI reconstruction required a median amount of data equal to an acquisition time of 2:21-3:17 min, which was 20% less data compared to the prebeam-derived 4D-MRI. System latency was reduced from 501 ± 12 ms to -1 ± 3 ms (SMS-TSE) and from 398 ± 10 ms to -10 ± 4 ms (SMS-bTFE) by a linear regression prediction filter. The local gamma analysis agreed within $$ to 3.3% (SMS-bTFE) and $$ to 10% (SMS-TSE) with a reference MRI sequence. The DAHs revealed a relative $$ GTV coverage between 97% and 100% (SMS-bTFE) and 100% and 101% (SMS-TSE) compared to the static reference.

The presented 2D/4D-MRI methodology demonstrated the potential for accurately extracting real-time motion for MLC tracking in abdominothoracic radiotherapy, while simultaneously reconstructing contiguous respiratory-correlated 4D-MRIs for dose accumulation.