A stochastic frontier analysis for enhanced treatment quality of high-dose-rate brachytherapy plans.

A stochastic frontier analysis for enhanced treatment quality of high-dose-rate brachytherapy plans. Phys Med Biol. 2019 Feb 07;: Authors: Edimo P, Kroshko A, Beaulieu L, Archambault L Abstract The purpose of the present study is to develop patient specific unbiased quality control (QC) models for high dose rate (HDR) brachytherapy plans. The proposed models are based on the stochastic frontier analysis formalism, a method of economic modeling. They act as a QC tool by predicting before the treatment planning process starts, the dosimetric coverage achievable for a HDR brachytherapy prostate plan. The geometric parameters considered in developing the models were: patient clinical target volume (CTV), organs at risk (OAR) volume, the bidirectional Hausdorff distance between CTV and OARs, and a fourth parameter measuring the catheters degree of non-parallelism within the target volume. Dosimetry parameters of interest are V<sub>100</sub> for the CTV, V<sub>75 </sub>(bladder, rectum) and D<sub>10</sub> (urethra). Results show that the built models can provide valuable information on the personalization of the optimization process based on the patient geometric parameters. The impact on the quality plan due to the planner's experience variability and judgment can be reduced by using those models, since the planner will attempt to achieve dosimetric param...
Source: Physics in Medicine and Biology - Category: Physics Authors: Tags: Phys Med Biol Source Type: research