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 T M 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.
Highlights
The plan is to enhance the quality of intraluminal brachytherapy treatment
This paper presents a very quick, simple and easy patient-specific independent verification method of the treatment time for intraluminal brachytherapy applicators
The objective was to confirm the total nominal time calculated by means of ABACUS treatment planning system (TPS) with the help of manual method, for different treatment lengths and treatment depths by developing and implementing a fast and accurate secondary dose calculation technique for quality assurance (QA) of High dose rate (HDR) treatment planning
Summary
The plan is to enhance the quality of intraluminal brachytherapy treatment. For this purpose, independent verification of total dwell time for individual patient is needed. Several studies have suggested that control rates are considerably enhanced with EBRT and brachytherapy[1,2,3,4]. High dose rate (HDR) remote after loading intraluminal brachytherapy has been commonly used all over the world[4]. Thomadsen et al recognized 44 errors in HDR brachytherapy treatment in data (1980-2001) from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and International Atomic Energy Agency[5] Guidelines[6,7] recommended the independent confirmation about the procedures for a pre-treatment
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