Consensus Delineation Guidelines for Pelvic Lymph Node Radiation Therapy of Prostate Cancer: On Behalf of the Francophone Group of Urological Radiation Therapy (GFRU)

Abstract

Purpose: Clinical target volume (CTV) delineation for pelvic lymph nodes in prostate cancer is currently based on 3 consensus guidelines with some inherent discrepancies. To improve the reproducibility in nodal delineation, the Francophone Group of Urological Radiotherapy (Groupe Francophone de Radiothérapie Urologique [GFRU]) worked toward proposing an easily applicable, reproducible, and practice-validated contouring guideline for pelvic nodal CTV.

Methods and materials: The nodal CTV data sets of a high-risk node-negative prostate cancer clinical case contoured by 86 radiation oncologists participating in a GFRU contouring workshop were analyzed. CTV volumes were defined before and after a structured presentation of literature data on lymphatic drainage pathways and patterns of nodal involvement and relapse, illustrated using a reference contour (CRef) defined by 3 GFRU experts. The consistency between the participants' contours and CRef was assessed quantitively by means of the Simultaneous Truth and Performance Level Estimation (STAPLE) method, the Dice coefficient, and the Hausdorff distance and qualitatively using a count map. These results combined with the literature review were thoroughly discussed among GFRU experts to reach a consensus.

Results: From the 86 workshop participants, the volume of the STAPLE CTV was 591 cc compared with 502 cc for CRef. The Dice coefficient of the STAPLE CTV compared with the experts' CRef was 0.736 (±0.084) before and 0.823 (±0.070) after the workshop; the standard deviation decreased from 11.5% to 8.5% over the workshop. The Hausdorff distance of the STAPLE CTV compared with the CRef was 34.5 mm (±12.4) before the workshop and 21.8 mm (±9.3) after the workshop. Four areas of significant interobserver variability were identified, and a consensus was reached.

Conclusions: Using a robust methodology, our cooperative group proposed an easily applicable, reproducible, and practice-validated guideline for the delineation of the pelvic CTV in prostate cancer, useful for implementation in daily practice and clinical trials.