Management of respiratory motion in radiation oncology

Respiration affects the instantaneous position of almost all thoracic and abdominal structures (lung, breast, liver, pancreas, etc.), posing significant problems in the radiotherapy of tumors located at these sites. The diaphragm, for example, has been shown to move approximately 1.5 cm in the superior-inferior direction during normal breathing. During radiotherapy, margin expansion around the tumor, based on an estimate of the expected range of tumor motion, is commonly employed to ensure adequate dose coverage. Such a margin estimate may or may not encompass the “current” extent of motion exhibited by the tumor, resulting in either a higher dose to the surrounding normal tissue or a cold spot in the tumor volume, leading to poor prognosis. Accounting for respiratory motion by active management during radiotherapy can, however, potentiate a reduction in the amount of high dose to normal tissue. Active management of respiratory motion forms the primary theme of this dissertation. Among the various techniques available to manage respiratory motion, our research focused on respiratory gated and respiration synchronized radiotherapy, with an external marker to monitor respiratory motion. Multiple session recordings of diaphragm and external marker motion revealed a consistent linear relationship, validating the use of external marker motion as a “surrogate” for diaphragm motion. The predictability of diaphragm motion based on such external marker motion both within and between treatment sessions was also determined to be of the order of 0.1 cm. Gating during exhalation was found to be more reproducible than gating during inhalation. Although, a reduction in the “gate” width achieved a modest reduction in the margins added around the tumor further reduction was limited by setup error. A motion phantom study of the potential gains from respiratory gating indicated margin reduction of 0.2–1.1 cm while employing gating. In addition, gating also improved the quality of images obtained during simulation by reducing the motion artifacts typically seen during CT imaging. An analysis of several patient breathing patterns with (audio instructions and visual feedback) and without training, indicated that breathing training improved the reproducibility of amplitude and/or frequency of patient breathing cycles. A phantom based study by superposition of sinusoidal motion of a “simulated” tumor onto the initial beam aperture as formed by the multileaf collimator revealed that target dose measurements obtained with such a motion synchronized setup were equivalent to those delivered to a static target by a static beam. An attempt to acquire respiration synchronized (4D) CT images of a motion phantom and a patient also yielded a 4D CT data set with reduced motion artifacts. Respiratory gated and respiration synchronized radiotherapy are both viable approaches to account for respiratory motion during radiotherapy. While respiratory gated radiotherapy has been successfully implemented in some centers, several technical advances are required for clinical implementation of respiration synchronized radiotherapy. Future applicability of either of the above approaches as routine treatment procedures will be determined by their potential clinical gains over currently available methods.