Clinical Practice-Based Failure Modes and Root Cause Analysis of Cone Beam CT-Guided Online Adaptive Radiotherapy of...

Background/Objectives: Cone-beam computed tomography (CBCT)-guided online adaptive radiotherapy (oART) represents a significant advancement in radiation oncology, enabling on-couch plan adaptation to account for daily anatomical changes. While this automation improves precision and workflow efficiency, it also introduces new failure modes (FMs) and workflow irregularities. This study aimed to systematically evaluate the clinical and technical challenges associated with CBCT-guided oART implementation. Methods: We retrospectively analyzed over 1000 CBCT-guided oART sessions for pelvic malignancies performed at our institution. A multidisciplinary team conducted a comprehensive review to identify and classify FMs, followed by root cause analysis (RCA) to evaluate their impact on treatment safety, efficacy, and workflow robustness. Results: In addition to session-terminating FMs, we identified recurring failure modes across three major domains: (1) system-driven issues, such as rigid target localization and software-driven irregularities; (2) patient-driven challenges, including interfractional and intrafractional anatomical variations; and (3) treatment planning and execution failures, including excessive dose hotspots from field-of-view limitations. The system's closed-loop automation, while streamlining processes, introduced rigid constraints in plan adaptation and fallback plan execution, occasionally leading to unintended dose discrepancies. Conclusions: This study provides a comprehensive clinical practice-based evaluation of CBCT-guided oART, highlighting system-specific failure modes and their implications. Addressing these challenges requires structured quality assurance processes, multidisciplinary collaboration, and continuous workflow refinement. Our findings contribute to the development of safer and more robust adaptive radiotherapy platforms and clinical workflows.