Impact of diaphragm motion on dosimetry in lower thoracic spine stereotactic body radiotherapy

Background and purpose: Free-breathing computed tomography (FBCT) used in treatment planning for lower thoracic (Th8-Th12) spine stereotactic body radiotherapy (SBRT) can cause deviations between planned and irradiated doses due to diaphragm movement (DM). This study analyzed the dosimetric impact of DM on lower thoracic spine SBRT.

Materials and methods: Data were collected from 19 patients who underwent FBCT and four-dimensional CT (4DCT) during the same session. The 4DCT data were divided into ten respiratory phases (0-90%), and an average CT (AveCT) was reconstructed from them. Using FBCT, target and normal tissues near the diaphragm were contoured and spine SBRT plans with 24-Gy doses in two fractions were created. These plans were applied to each phase of CT and AveCT, with doses recalculated using the same parameters. Actual treatment doses (Deformed AveCT) were estimated by accumulating doses across each 4DCT phase using deformable image registration on the AveCT. Dose-volume histogram (DVH) indices were compared between the FBCT, AveCT, 0% phase, 50% phase, and Deformed AveCT plans.

Results: The mean differences in DVH indices for target and normal tissues were within 2.4 and 2.1%, respectively, when the diaphragm displacement was between -1.6 cm and 2.0 cm, as compared with FBCT. DM displacement showed moderate to strong correlations with DVH differences.

Conclusion: Our results indicate that DM has a minor impact on DVH indices if the diaphragm remains within 1.5 cm of the FBCT position.