Development and evaluation of an automated EPTN-consensus based organ at risk atlas in the brain on MRI

Abstract

Background and purposeDuring radiotherapy treatment planning, avoidance of organs at risk (OARs) is important. An international consensus-based delineation guideline was recently published with 34 OARs in the brain. We developed an MR-based OAR autosegmentation atlas and evaluated its performance compared to manual delineation. Materials and methodsAnonymized cerebral T1-weighted MR scans (voxel size 0.9 × 0.9 × 0.9 mm3) were available. OARs were manually delineated according to international consensus. Fifty MR scans were used to develop the autosegmentation atlas in a commercially available treatment planning system (Raystation®). The performance of this atlas was tested on another 40 MR scans by automatically delineating 34 OARs, as defined by the 2018 EPTN consensus. Spatial overlap between manual and automated delineations was determined by calculating the Dice similarity coefficient (DSC). Two radiation oncologists determined the quality of each automatically delineated OAR. The time needed to delineate all OARs manually or to adjust automatically delineated OARs was determined. ResultsDSC was ≥ 0.75 in 31 (91 %) out of 34 automated OAR delineations. Delineations were rated by radiation oncologists as excellent or good in 29 (85 %) out 34 OAR delineations, while 4 were rated fair (12 %) and 1 was rated poor (3 %). Interobserver agreement between the radiation oncologists ranged from 77-100 % per OAR. The time to manually delineate all OARs was 88.5 minutes, while the time needed to adjust automatically delineated OARs was 15.8 minutes. ConclusionAutosegmentation of OARs enables high-quality contouring within a limited time. Accurate OAR delineation helps to define OAR constraints to mitigate serious complications and helps with the development of NTCP models.