Investigation of respiration induced intra- and inter-fractional tumour motion using a standard Cone Beam CT

Abstract

Background. To investigate whether a standard Cone beam CT (CBCT) scan can be used to determined the intra- and inter-fractional tumour motion for lung tumours that have infiltrated the mediastinum. Material and methods. This study includes 23 patients with non small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). The intra-fractional tumour motion was analysed for each patient on a 4D-CT scan as well as on three 4D-CBCT (fraction 3, 10 and 20). The 4D-CBCT was reconstructed from a standard 3D-CBCT using in-house developed software. The tumour (GTV) was delineated in the first phase of the 4D-CT. Registration of phase one from the 4D-CT and 4D-CBCT was used to copy the GTV to the CBCT scans. Hereafter the motion of the outlined GTV was tracked in the planning 4D-CT and the three 4D-CBCT using Pinnacle^® version 8.1w (research version). Additionally, the inter-fractional tumour movement, relative to the bony structure, was obtained from the difference in tumour position between the 3D-CT and the standard 3D-CBCT. Results. It is possible to track a lung tumour with mediastinal infiltration in the 4D-CBCT scan based on a standard 3D-CBCT. The respiration motion in the 4D-CBCT is not significantly different from the result found from the initial 4D-CT. Likewise, no differences in respiration motion was found between fractions 3, 10 and 20. Conclusion. This study shows that it is possible to track tumour motion for NSCLC patients with mediastinal infiltration using a standard 3D-CBCT. No change in the intra-fractional tumour motion of clinically relevance was observed during the fractionated treatment course. The inter-fractional tumour motion found underlines the importance of using daily IGRT with online match on soft tissue in order to be able to reduce treatment margins.

Acknowledgements

This work is supported by CIRRO – The Lundbeck Foundation Center for Interventional Research in Radiation Oncology and The Danish Council for Strategic Research.

Declaration of interest: The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.