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A method for verification of treatment times for high-dose-rate intraluminal brachytherapy treatment
Abstract
Purpose: This study was aimed to increase the quality of high dose rate (HDR) intraluminal brachytherapy treatment. For this purpose, an easy, fast and accurate patient-specific quality assurance (QA) tool has been developed. This tool has been implemented at Bahawalpur Institute of Nuclear Medicine and Oncology (BINO), Bahawalpur, Pakistan.
Methods: ABACUS 3.1 Treatment planning system (TPS) has been used for treatment planning and calculation of total dwell time and then results were compared with the time calculated using the proposed method. This method has been used to verify the total dwell time for different rectum applicators for relevant treatment lengths (2-7 cm) and depths (1.5-2.5 cm), different oesophagus applicators of relevant treatment lengths (6-10 cm) and depths (0.9 & 1.0 cm), and a bronchus applicator for relevant treatment lengths (4-7.5 cm) and depth (0.5 cm).
Results: The average percentage differences between treatment time TM with manual calculation and as calculated by the TPS is 0.32% (standard deviation 1.32%) for rectum, 0.24% (standard deviation 2.36%) for oesophagus and 1.96% (standard deviation 0.55%) for bronchus, respectively. These results advocate that the proposed method is valuable for independent verification of patient-specific treatment planning QA.
Conclusion: The technique illustrated in the current study is an easy, simple, quick and useful for independent verification of the total dwell time for HDR intraluminal brachytherapy. Our method is able to identify human error-related planning mistakes and to evaluate the quality of treatment planning. It enhances the quality of brachytherapy treatment and reliability of the system.
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DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.14319/ijcto.42.3
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