A novel approach to Verify air gap and SSD for proton radiotherapy using surface imaging

Purpose: To develop a novel approach to accurately verify patient set up in proton radiotherapy, especially for the verification of the nozzle - body surface air gap and source-to-skin distance (SSD), the consistency and accuracy of which is extremely important in proton treatment.

Methods: Patient body surfaces can be captured and monitored with the optical surface imaging system during radiation treatment for improved intrafraction accuracy. An in-house software package was developed to reconstruct the patient body surface in the treatment position from the optical surface imaging reference capture and to calculate the corresponding nozzle - body surface air gap and SSD. To validate this method, a mannequin was scanned on a CT simulator and proton plans were generated for a Mevion S250 Proton machine with 20 gantry/couch angle combinations, as well as two different snout sizes, in the Varian Eclipse Treatment Planning Systems (TPS). The surface generated in the TPS from the CT scan was imported into the optical imaging system as an RT Structure for the purpose of validating and establishing a benchmark for ground truth comparison. The optical imaging surface reference capture was acquired at the treatment setup position after orthogonal kV imaging to confirm the positioning. The air gaps and SSDs calculated with the developed method from the surface captured at the treatment setup position (VRT surface) and the CT based surface imported from the TPS were compared to those calculated in TPS. The same approach was also applied to 14 clinical treatment fields for 10 patients to further validate the methodology.

Results: The air gaps and SSDs calculated from our program agreed well with the corresponding values derived from the TPS. For the phantom results, using the CT surface, the absolute differences in the air gap were 0.45 mm ± 0.33 mm for the small snout, and 0.51 mm ± 0.49 mm for the large snout, and the absolute differences in SSD were 0.68 mm ± 0.42 mm regardless of snout size. Using the VRT surface, the absolute differences in air gap were 1.17 mm ± 1.17 mm and 2.1 mm ± 3.09 mm for the small and large snouts, respectively, and the absolute differences in SSD were 0.81 mm ± 0.45 mm. Similarly, for patient data, using the CT surface, the absolute differences in air gap were 0.42 mm ± 0.49 mm, and the absolute differences in SSD were 1.92 mm ± 1.4 mm. Using the VRT surface, the absolute differences in the air gap were 2.35 mm ± 2.3 mm, and the absolute differences in SSD were 2.7 mm ± 2.17 mm.

Conclusion: These results showed the feasibility and robustness of using an optical surface imaging approach to conveniently determine the air gap and SSD in proton treatment, providing an accurate and efficient way to confirm the target depth at treatment.