Implementing Radiation Dose-Volume Liver Response in Biomechanical Deformable Image Registration

Abstract

Purpose: Understanding anatomic and functional changes in the liver resulting from radiation therapy is fundamental to the improvement of normal tissue complication probability models needed to advance personalized medicine. The ability to link pretreatment and posttreatment imaging is often compromised by significant dose-dependent volumetric changes within the liver that are currently not accounted for in deformable image registration (DIR) techniques. This study investigated using delivered dose, in combination with other patient factors, to biomechanically model longitudinal changes in liver anatomy for follow-up care and re-treatment planning.

Methods and materials: Population models describing the relationship between dose and hepatic volume response were produced using retrospective data from 33 patients treated with focal radiation therapy. A DIR technique was improved by implementing additional boundary conditions associated with the dose-volume response in series with a previously developed biomechanical DIR algorithm. Evaluation of this DIR technique was performed on computed tomography imaging from 7 patients by comparing the model-predicted volumetric change within the liver with the observed change, tracking vessel bifurcations within the liver through the deformation process, and then determining target registration error between the predicted and identified posttreatment bifurcation points.

Results: Evaluation of the proposed DIR technique showed that all lobes were volumetrically deformed to within the respective contour variability of each lobe. The average target registration error achieved was 7.3 mm (2.8 mm left-right and anterior-posterior and 5.1 mm superior-inferior), with the superior-inferior component within the average limiting slice thickness (6.0 mm). This represented a significant improvement (P<.01, Wilcoxon test) over the application of the previously published biomechanical DIR algorithm (10.9 mm).

Conclusions: This study demonstrates the feasibility of implementing dose-driven volumetric response in deformable registration, enabling improved accuracy of modeling liver anatomy changes, which could allow for improved dose accumulation, particularly for patients who require additional liver radiation therapy.