Accuracy and stability of deep inspiration breath hold in gated breast radiotherapy - A comparison of two tracking and guidance systems

Abstract

Purpose: To characterize reproducibility of patient breath-hold positioning and compare tracking system performance for Deep Inspiration Breath Hold (DIBH) gated left breast radiotherapy.

Methods: 29 consecutive left breast DIBH patients (655 fractions) were treated under the guidance of Calypso surface beacons with audio-feedback and 35 consecutive patients (631 fractions) were treated using C-RAD Catalyst HD surface imaging with audiovisual feedback. The Calypso system tracks a centroid determined by two radio-frequency transponders, with a manually enforced institutional tolerance, while the surface image based CatalystHD system utilizes real-time biometric feedback to track a pre-selected point with an institutional tolerance enforced by the Elekta Response gating interface. DIBH motion data from Calypso was extracted to obtain the displacement of breath hold marker in ant/post direction from a set-zero reference point. Ant/post point displacement data from CatalystHD was interpreted by computing the difference between raw tracking points and the center of individual gating windows. Mean overall errors were compared using Welsh's unequal variance t-test. Wilcoxon rank sum test were used for statistical analysis with P < 0.05 considered significant.

Results: Mean overall error for Calypso and CatalystHD were 0.33 ± 1.17 mm and 0.22 ± 0.43 mm, respectively, with t-test comparison P-value < 0.034. Absolute errors for Calypso and CatalystHD were 0.95 ± 0.75 mm and 0.38 ± 0.30 mm, respectively, with Wilcoxon rank sum test P-value <2×10^-16. Average standard deviation per fraction was found to be 0.74 ± 0.44 mm for Calypso patients versus 0.54 ± 0.22 mm for CatalystHD.

Conclusion: Reduced error distribution widths in overall positioning, deviation of position, and per fraction deviation suggest that the use of functionalities available in CatalystHD such as audiovisual biofeedback and patient surface matching improves accuracy and stability during DIBH gated left breast radiotherapy.

Keywords: Biofeedback; Motion management; Surface imaging.