Reduction of post-radiotherapy urinary toxicity via intrafractional MV-kV prostate location monitoring

Abstract

We hypothesized that an in-house developed system using MV and kV image guidance (MKIG) to ensure correct prostate positioning during SBRT could potentially avoid unwanted doses to non-target tissues, leading to reduced toxicities. We built a 3D MKIG platform that accurately tracks prostate implanted fiducials in real-time and clinically translated the system to replace a commercial approach, intrafraction motion review (IMR), which only tracks fiducials in the 2D kV views. From 2017 to 2019, 150 prostate cancer patients were treated with SBRT and monitored by MKIG. The motion trace of the fiducials alerts therapists to interrupt and reposition the prostate when displacement exceeds a 1.5 mm threshold. A comparison cohort of 121 patients was treated with the same dose regimen and treatment technique but managed by IMR. Statistics of intrafractional patient shifts and delivery time were collected to evaluate the workflow efficacy. The incidence of grade ≥2 urinary toxicities was analyzed to assess clinical complications. The median follow-up time was 3.7 years (0.2 to 8.2 years). MKIG treatments had more treatment shifts (1.09 vs. 0.28) and a longer average delivery time per fraction (579±205s vs. 357±117s) than IMR treatments. Three-quarters (75%) of shifts resulting from MKIG were ≤3mm, vs. 51% in IMR, indicating that MKIG detected and corrected smaller deviations. The incidence of grade ≥2 urinary toxicity was lower in the MKIG than IMR cohort: 10.7% vs. 19.8% (p=0.047). On multivariate analysis of late urinary toxicity, only high (>7) pre-RT IPSS (p<0.043) and the use of MKIG were selected (p< 0.029). Automated and quantitative MKIG introduced minimal workflow impact and was superior to IMR in localizing the prostate during SBRT, which correlated with a clinically significant reduction in late urinary toxicity. Further clinical testing via randomized trial will be required to validate the impact on outcomes.