Optimal electron and combined electron and photon therapy in the phase space of complication-free cure

Abstract

The possibility of using intensity-modulated high-energy electrons beams alone or in combination with photon beams to treat tumours located at depths from 5 cm to 25 cm has been investigated. A radiobiologically based optimization algorithm using the probability of complication-free tumour control has been used to calculate the optimal dose distributions. Two different target volumes have been used; one advanced cervical cancer with locally involved lymph nodes and one astrocytoma in the upper brain hemisphere. Treatments with only electron beams and also combinations between electron and photon beams have been investigated. The dependence of the expected treatment outcome on the beam energy and directions was investigated, and to some extent on the number of beam portals. It is shown that the beam direction intervals resulting in a high expected treatment outcome increase with increasing electron energy and also with some electron-photon combinations. For an eccentrically placed, not too deeply situated tumour surrounded by sensitive normal tissue it is shown that the expected treatment outcome can be improved by using electron beams in combination with photon beams compared with using two photon beams, and using two electron beams results in almost as high an expected treatment outcome. The possibility of improving the dose conformity from electron beams by adding photon fields parallel or orthogonal to the electron beams is demonstrated.