Feasibility Study of Automated Framework for Estimating Lung Tumor Locations for Target-Based Patient Positioning in Stereotactic Body Radiotherapy

• Published in: BioMed research international Vol. 2015; no. 2015; pp. 1 - 9
• Main Authors: Hirata, Hideki, Nishikawa, Kei, Nakamura, Yasuhiko, Atsumi, Kazushige, Shioyama, Yoshiyuki, Nakamura, Katsumasa, Arimura, Hidetaka, Yoshidome, Satoshi, Yoshikawa, Hideki
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Cairo, Egypt Hindawi Publishing Corporation 01.01.2015; John Wiley & Sons, Inc; Hindawi Limited
• Subjects: Aged; Aged, 80 and over; Automation; Biomedical research; Cancer; Cone-Beam Computed Tomography; Diagnosis; Feasibility Studies; Female; Humans; Lung Neoplasms - diagnostic imaging; Lung Neoplasms - surgery; Lung tumors; Male; Methods; Patient Positioning; Radiosurgery; Radiosurgery - methods
• ISSN: 2314-6133; 2314-6141
• DOI: 10.1155/2015/653974

Objective. To investigate the feasibility of an automated framework for estimating the lung tumor locations for tumor-based patient positioning with megavolt-cone-beam computed tomography (MV-CBCT) during stereotactic body radiotherapy (SBRT). Methods. A lung screening phantom and ten lung cancer cases with solid lung tumors, who were treated with SBRT, were employed to this study. The locations of tumors in MV-CBCT images were estimated using a tumor-template matching technique between a tumor template and the MV-CBCT. Tumor templates were produced by cropping the gross tumor volume (GTV) regions, which were enhanced by a Sobel filter or a blob structure enhancement (BSE) filter. Reference tumor locations (grand truth) were determined based on a consensus between a radiation oncologist and a medical physicist. Results. According to the results of the phantom study, the average Euclidean distances of the location errors in the original, Sobel-filtered, and BSE-filtered images were 2.0 ± 4.1 mm, 12.8 ± 9.4 mm, and 0.4 ± 0.5 mm, respectively. For clinical cases, these were 3.4 ± 7.1 mm, 7.2 ± 11.6 mm, and 1.6 ± 1.2 mm, respectively. Conclusion. The feasibility study suggests that our proposed framework based on the BSE filter may be a useful tool for tumor-based patient positioning in SBRT.