Dosimetric accuracy of dynamic couch rotation during volumetric modulated arc therapy (DCR-VMAT) for primary brain tumours.

Dosimetric accuracy of dynamic couch rotation during volumetric modulated arc therapy (DCR-VMAT) for primary brain tumours. Phys Med Biol. 2019 Feb 26;: Authors: Smyth G, Evans PM, Bamber JC, Mandeville HC, Moore AR, Welsh LC, Saran FH, Bedford JL Abstract Radiotherapy treatment plans using dynamic couch rotation during volumetric modulated arc therapy (DCR-VMAT) reduce the dose to organs at risk (OARs) compared to coplanar VMAT, while maintaining the dose to the planning target volume (PTV). This paper seeks to validate this finding with measurements. DCR-VMAT treatment plans were produced for five patients with primary brain tumours and delivered using a commercial linear accelerator (linac). Dosimetric accuracy was assessed using point dose and radiochromic film measurements. Linac- recorded mechanical errors were assessed by extracting deviations from log files for multi-leaf collimator (MLC), couch, and gantry positions every 20 ms. Dose distributions, reconstructed from every fifth log file sample, were calculated and used to determine deviations from the treatment plans. Median (range) treatment delivery times were 125 s (123-133 s) for DCR-VMAT, compared to 78 s (64-130 s) for coplanar VMAT. Absolute point doses were 0.8% (0.6-1.7%) higher than prediction. For coronal and sagittal films, respectively, 99.2% (96.7-100%) and 98.1% (92.9-99.0%) of pixels above a 20% low dose threshold reported gamma <1 for 3% and 3 mm cri...
Source: Physics in Medicine and Biology - Category: Physics Authors: Tags: Phys Med Biol Source Type: research