Neurovascular bundle sparing in hypofractionated radiotherapy maintained with realistic treatment uncertainties.

ABSTRACT:

Background and purpose

Erectile dysfunction is a common side effect of radiotherapy for prostate cancer. To mitigate this toxicity, it has been suggested to limit the dose to critical nerves and vessels. We investigated the feasibility of sparing the neuro-vascular bundles (NVBs) in stereotactic body radiotherapy under the impact of realistic treatment uncertainties.

Materials and methods

Non-sparing and sparing NVB treatment plans, delivered in 5 × 7.25 Gy, were automatically generated for 20 patients. Polynomial Chaos Expansion (PCE) was used to fast and accurately model the dose against treatment errors. PCE enabled a robustness evaluation of 100.000 treatment scenarios per plan, allowing to derive scenario distributions of clinically relevant dose volume histogram parame

SUBMITTER: Kwakernaak RC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11840216 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature