Background and purpose: Dose prescription in stereotactic body radiotherapy (SBRT) for liver tumors is often limited by the mean liver dose. We explore the concept of spatiotemporal fractionation as an approach to facilitate further dose escalation in liver SBRT.
Materials and methods: Spatiotemporal fractionation schemes aim at partial hypofractionation in the tumor along with near-uniform fractionation in normal tissues. This is achieved by delivering distinct dose distributions in different fractions, which are designed such that each fraction delivers a high single fraction dose to complementary parts of the tumor while creating a similar dose bath in the surrounding noninvolved liver. Thereby, higher biologically effective doses (BED) can be delivered to the tumor without increasing the mean BED in the liver. Planning of such treatments is performed by simultaneously optimizing multiple dose distributions based on their cumulative BED. We study this concept for five liver cancer patients with different tumor geometries.
Results: Spatiotemporal fractionation presents a method of increasing the ratio of prescribed tumor BED to mean BED in the noninvolved liver by approximately 10-20%, compared to conventional SBRT using identical fractions.
Conclusions: Spatiotemporal fractionation may reduce the risk of liver toxicity or facilitate dose escalation in liver SBRT in circumstances where the mean dose to the non-involved liver is the prescription-limiting factor.
Keywords: Dose escalation; Fractionation; Liver SBRT; Treatment plan optimization.
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