Treatment plan verification: A review on the comparison of dose distributions

Purpose: The aim of this review article is to provide a useful reference for dose comparison techniques within the frame of treatment plan verification. Each technique is presented with a general description given along with advantages and disadvantage and the rationale for its development.

Methods: The review was conducted in PubMed from 1993 to 2019 including articles referring to the methodology of dose comparison for treatment plan verification.

Results: The search identified thirty-one dose comparison methods that were categorized according to the number of physical parameters that take into account for dose comparison.

Conclusions: Among the available methods for the comparison of two dose distributions, the γ-analysis (gamma analysis) has been widely adopted as the gold standard in verification procedures. However, due to various intrinsic limitations of gamma index, the development of a better metric taking into account both statistical and in clinical parameters is required.