Treating benign optic nerve tumors with a 3-D conformal plan

Abstract

A 68 year old male patient presented for radiation therapy for treatment of a benign tumor, a glioma of his left optic nerve. The radiation oncologist intended to prescribe 52.2 Gy to the planning target volume, while maintaining a maximum of 54 Gy to the optic nerves and the optic chiasm and a maximum of 40–45 Gy to the globes in order to minimize the possibility of damaging the optic system, which is especially important as this is a benign tumor. The dosimetrist devised a conformal non-coplanar three-dimensional plan with a slightly weighted forward planning component. This plan was created in approximately 15 minutes after the critical organs and the targets were delineated and resulted in an extremely conformal and homogenous plan, treating the target while sparing the nearby critical structures. This approach can also be extended to other tumors in the brain - benign or malignant.