Dosimetric Implications of CT Metallic Artifacts Correction in Current Radiation Therapy Treatment Planning Systems

Abstract

Metal implants are recognized as a problem that limits the application of CT imaging in radiotherapy planning. Besides the loss of diagnostic quality of the artifacted image, incorrect HUs cause incorrect electron density information that may introduce errors in the calculations of the radiation dose distribution. This study investigates two methods for correction of CT metallic artifacts to reduce the uncertainty of dose calculation in popular external beam treatment planning systems.