Building motion models of lung tumours from cone-beam CT for radiotherapy applications

Phys Med Biol. 2013 Mar 21;58(6):1809-22. doi: 10.1088/0031-9155/58/6/1809. Epub 2013 Feb 26.

Abstract

A method is presented to build a surrogate-driven motion model of a lung tumour from a cone-beam CT scan, which does not require markers. By monitoring an external surrogate in real time, it is envisaged that the motion model be used to drive gated or tracked treatments. The motion model would be built immediately before each fraction of treatment and can account for inter-fraction variation. The method could also provide a better assessment of tumour shape and motion prior to delivery of each fraction of stereotactic ablative radiotherapy. The two-step method involves enhancing the tumour region in the projections, and then fitting the surrogate-driven motion model. On simulated data, the mean absolute error was reduced to 1 mm. For patient data, errors were determined by comparing estimated and clinically identified tumour positions in the projections, scaled to mm at the isocentre. Averaged over all used scans, the mean absolute error was under 2.5 mm in superior-inferior and transverse directions.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Cone-Beam Computed Tomography*
  • Humans
  • Image Processing, Computer-Assisted
  • Lung Neoplasms / diagnostic imaging*
  • Lung Neoplasms / physiopathology
  • Lung Neoplasms / radiotherapy*
  • Models, Biological*
  • Movement*
  • Radiotherapy, Image-Guided*