Evaluation of Biological Effective Dose in Gamma Knife Staged Stereotactic Radiosurgery for Large Brain Metastases

Taoran Cui; Joseph Weiner; Shabbar Danish; Anupama Chundury; Nisha Ohri; Ning Yue; Xiao Wang; Ke Nie

doi:10.3389/fonc.2022.892139

Evaluation of Biological Effective Dose in Gamma Knife Staged Stereotactic Radiosurgery for Large Brain Metastases

Front Oncol. 2022 Jun 30:12:892139. doi: 10.3389/fonc.2022.892139. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Taoran Cui¹, Joseph Weiner¹, Shabbar Danish², Anupama Chundury¹, Nisha Ohri¹, Ning Yue¹, Xiao Wang¹, Ke Nie¹

Affiliations

¹ Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, New Brunswick, NJ, United States.
² Jersey Shore University Medical Center (JSUMC), Neptune, NJ, United States.

Abstract

Objective: Gamma knife (GK) staged stereotactic radiosurgery (Staged-SRS) has become an effective treatment option for large brain metastases (BMs); however, it has been challenging to evaluate the total dose because of tumor shrinkage between two staged sessions. This study aims to evaluate total biological effective dose (BED) in Staged-SRS, and to compare the BED with those in single-fraction SRS (SF-SRS) and hypo-fractionated SRS (HF-SRS).

Methods: Patients treated with GK Staged-SRS at a single institution were retrospectively included. The dose delivered in two sessions of Staged-SRS was summed using the deformable image registration. Each patient was replanned for SF-SRS and HF-SRS. The total BEDs were computed using the linear-quadratic model. Tumor BED_98% and brain V_84Gy2, equivalent to V_12Gy in SF-SRS, were compared between SF-SRS, HF-SRS, and Staged-SRS plans with the Wilcoxon test.

Results: Twelve patients with 24 BMs treated with GK Staged-SRS were identified. We observed significant differences (p < 0.05) in tumor BED_98% but comparable brain V_84Gy2 (p = 0.677) between the Staged-SRS and SF-SRS plans. No dosimetric advantages of Staged-SRS over HF-SRS were observed. Tumor BED_98% in the HF-SRS plans were significantly higher than those in the Staged-SRS plans (p < 0.05). Despite the larger PTVs, brain V_84Gy2 in the HF-SRS plans remained lower (p < 0.05).

Conclusion: We presented an approach to calculate the composite BEDs delivered to both tumor and normal brain tissue in Staged-SRS. Compared to SF-SRS, Staged-SRS delivers a higher dose to tumor but maintains a comparable dose to normal brain tissue. Our results did not show any dosimetric advantages of Staged-SRS over HF-SRS.

Keywords: biological effective dose (BED); gamma knife (GK); large brain metastases; staged radiosurgery; stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS).