Predicting Patient-specific Dosimetric Benefits of Proton Therapy for Skull-base Tumors Using a Geometric Knowledge-based Method.

ABSTRACT:

Purpose

To predict the organ at risk (OAR) dose levels achievable with proton beam therapy (PBT), solely based on the geometric arrangement of the target volume in relation to the OARs. A comparison with an alternative therapy yields a prediction of the patient-specific benefits offered by PBT. This could enable physicians at hospitals without proton capabilities to make a better-informed referral decision or aid patient selection in model-based clinical trials.

Methods and materials

Skull-base tumors were chosen to test the method, owing to their geometric complexity and multitude of nearby OARs. By exploiting the correlations between the dose and distance-to-target in existing PBT plans, the models were independently trained for 6 types of OARs: brainstem, cochlea, optic c

SUBMITTER: Hall DC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5377911 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature