CBCT-based Prostate IGRT With and Without Implanted Markers: Assessment of Geometric Corrections and Time for Completion

Abstract

Background/aim: Cone-beam computed tomography (CBCT) is the most commonly used system in modern radiotherapy of prostate cancer for daily positioning verification. The use of intraprostatic radiopaque fiducials (FMs) may be added to CBCT. We wanted to investigate the possible advantage of using FMs in daily CBCT repositioning.

Materials and methods: We selected three CBCTs for each treatment course for 13 patients (seven with and six without use of FMs) treated at our centre. Seven experienced Radiation Oncologists retrospectively reviewed the CBCTs, recording couch movements for correct patient positioning, and time spent to do it. Analysis of variance and t-test were carried out for comparison of different groups and for differences in mean values of the movements recorded (with p<0.05 as significance level).

Results: No statistically significant difference was found between operators in the analysis of images with FMs nor of images without them. A difference was only found in the mean corrections in couch rotation and pitch angle, which were higher in the FM group, and in the mean time for image analysis, which was shorter in this group. Using the van Herk formula, we found a possible reduction of clinical target volume and planning target volume margins for the FM group.

Conclusion: According to our study, the use of intraprostatic FMs in daily CBCT seems useful for better detection of and correction for non-negligible rotational errors. Furthermore, FMs reduced the time to treatment start, which is very important in reducing the risk of intrafraction organ motion. These results need to be confirmed by further studies.

Keywords: Prostate cancer; cone-beam CT; fiducial markers; image-guided radiotherapy; radiotherapy.