Intensity modulated radiotherapy (IMRT) can potentially increase the dose delivered to liver tumours while sparing normal tissues from dose. More complex IMRT, with more modulation of the radiation beam is more susceptible to geometric and dosimetric uncertainties than simpler radiotherapy plans. Simple breath-hold liver IMRT using few radiation beam segments (<30) was investigated in 27 patients to determine the quality of treatment in terms of tumour dose coverage and normal tissue sparing as compared to index IMRT using >30 segments. In all 27 plans number of segments was reduced to <30 without compromising tumour coverage or normal tissue dose constraints, at the expense of dose conformity. Delivered tumour and normal tissue dose did not differ statistically between IMRT plans when accounting for treatment residual geometric error. This research supports considering the use of simple IMRT for treatment of liver cancer, except when loss of dose conformation is undesirable (i.e. very high doses).
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:TORONTO/oai:tspace.library.utoronto.ca:1807/18809 |
| Date | 15 February 2010 |
| Creators | Lee, Mark Tiong Yew |
| Contributors | Dawson, Laura |
| Source Sets | University of Toronto |
| Language | en_ca |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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