Markerless tracking of tumor and tissues: A motion model approach

Background: Respiratory motion management is essential in order to achieve high-precision radiotherapy. Markerless motion tracking of tumor can provide a non-invasive way to manage respiratory motion, thereby enhancing treatment accuracy. However, the low contrast in real-time x-ray images for image guidance limits the application of markerless tracking.

Purpose: We present a novel approach based on a motion model to perform markerless tracking of tumor and surrounding tissues even when they have low contrast in real-time x-ray images.

Methods: A proof-of-concept validation of the method has been performed using digital and physical phantoms at breathing conditions that are significantly different than the planning stage. A motion model is first constructed by performing principal component analysis (PCA) on the planning 4DCT. During treatment, the motion of a surrogate is tracked and used as the input of the motion model, which generates a 3D real-time volume estimation. Such 3D estimation is then projected to 2D to create digitally reconstructed radiographs (DRRs). The relationships between the real-time DRRs, reference DRRs, and reference x-ray images are first established to simulate 2D real-time images from the real-time volume. The registration between the simulated 2D real-time images and real-time x-ray images corrects the initial motion model estimation to ensure the estimated volume matches the real-time condition.

Results: In digital phantom, the Dice index of pancreas was improved from 0.74 to 0.78 after correction using real-time DRRs in fully inhaled phase. Validation on lung and pancreas is performed in physical phantom with two motion traces. The surrogate-tumor relationships were intentionally altered to generate large target localization errors due to the differences in body condition between treatment planning stage and during treatment. The real-time correction for the estimated 3D real-time volume was performed using a pair of 2D x-ray images. For the deep breathing motion trace, the tumor localization mean absolute error (MAE) throughout the tracking decreases from around 3 mm to less than 1 mm after correction. For the shallow breathing motion trace with a 1.7 mm baseline shift, the tumor localization MAE throughout the tracking decreases from around 1.5 mm to less than 1 mm after correction.

Conclusion: The method combines the detailed structural information from planning 4DCT and real-time information from real-time x-ray images through a motion model. The matching between the real-time model estimation and 2D real-time images is performed in the same modality so that it can be applied to regions with low contrast in the images. The real-time images successfully corrected the initial motion model estimations in our proof-of-concept validation. This suggests the potential to perform markerless tracking in low-contrast region using a motion model.