Robust Intensity Modulated Proton Therapy (IMPT) Increases Estimated Clinical Benefit in Head and Neck Cancer Patients.

ABSTRACT:

Purpose

To compare the clinical benefit of robust optimized Intensity Modulated Proton Therapy (minimax IMPT) with current photon Intensity Modulated Radiation Therapy (IMRT) and PTV-based IMPT for head and neck cancer (HNC) patients. The clinical benefit is quantified in terms of both Normal Tissue Complication Probability (NTCP) and target coverage in the case of setup and range errors.

Methods and materials

For 10 HNC patients, PTV-based IMRT (7 fields), minimax and PTV-based IMPT (2, 3, 4, 5 and 7 fields) plans were tested on robustness. Robust optimized plans differed from PTV-based plans in that they target the CTV and penalize possible error scenarios, instead of using the static isotropic CTV-PTV margin. Perturbed dose distributions of all plans were acquired by simu

SUBMITTER: van Dijk LV 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4816406 | biostudies-literature | 2016

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature