Benchmarking a new three-dimensional ultrasound system for prostate image guided radiation therapy

• Main Author: Johnston, Holly A.
• Other Authors: Hilts, Michelle
• Language: English; en
• Published: 2008
• Subjects: Radiation Therapy; Prostate Cancer; Ultrasound; Image Guidance; UVic Subject Index::Sciences and Engineering::Health Sciences::Radiology; UVic Subject Index::Sciences and Engineering::Physics::Radiation
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/1828/889

Image guided radiation therapy (IGRT) is a new type of radiotherapy used to deliver lethal doses of radiation to mobile tumors, while preventing surrounding healthy structures from receiving high doses of radiation. It relies on image guidance to track the tumor and ensure its prescribed position in the radiation beam. The main goal of this work was to determine if a new three-dimensional ultrasound (3D US) image guidance device, called the Restitu System, could safely replace (or be used interchangeably with) an existing method involving x-ray images of implanted fiducial markers (FMs) for prostate IGRT. Using comparison statistics called 95 % limits of agreement (LOA), it was found that the new 3D US system did not produce measurements that agreed sufficiently closely to those made using the FM technique, and therefore, could not safely replace FMs for prostate IGRT. Ultrasound image quality and user variability were determined to have a significant impact on the agreement between the two methods. It was further shown that using the Restitu System offered no significant clinical advantages over a conventional patient re-positioning technique.