Overview and Recommendations for Prospective Multi-institutional Spatially Fractionated Radiation Therapy Clinical Trials

Abstract

PurposeThe highly heterogeneous dose delivery of Spatially fractionated radiotherapy (SFRT) is a profound departure from standard radiation planning and reporting approaches. Early SFRT studies have shown excellent clinical outcomes. However, prospective multi-institutional clinical trials of SFRT are still lacking. This NRG Oncology/American Association of Physicists in Medicine (AAPM) working group consensus aimed to develop recommendations on dosimetric planning, delivery, and SFRT dose reporting to address this current obstacle towards the design of SFRT clinical trials. Materials and MethodsWorking groups consisting of radiation oncologists, radiobiologists, and medical physicists with expertise in SFRT were formed in NRG Oncology and AAPM to investigate the needs and barriers in SFRT clinical trials. ResultsUpon reviewing the SFRT technologies and methods, this group identified challenges in several areas, including the availability of SFRT, the lack of TPS support for SFRT, the lack of guidance in the physics and dosimetry of SFRT, the approximated radiobiological modeling of SFRT, and prescription and the combination of SFRT with conventional radiotherapy. ConclusionRecognizing these challenges, the group further recommended several areas of improvement for the application of SFRT in cancer treatment, including the creation of clinical practice guidance documents, the improvement of TPS support, the generation of treatment planning and dosimetric index reporting template, the development of better radiobiological models through pre-clinical studies, and through conducting multi-institution clinical trials.