A study to investigate the influence of cardiac motion on the robustness of pencil beam scanning proton plans in oesophageal cancer

Melissa Thomas; Gilles Defraene; Mario Levis; Edmond Sterpin; Maarten Lambrecht; Umberto Ricardi; Karin Haustermans

doi:10.1016/j.phro.2020.09.003

A study to investigate the influence of cardiac motion on the robustness of pencil beam scanning proton plans in oesophageal cancer

Phys Imaging Radiat Oncol. 2020 Oct 13:16:50-53. doi: 10.1016/j.phro.2020.09.003. eCollection 2020 Oct.

Authors

Melissa Thomas^{1

2}, Gilles Defraene¹, Mario Levis³, Edmond Sterpin^{1

4}, Maarten Lambrecht^{1

2}, Umberto Ricardi³, Karin Haustermans^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ KU Leuven - University of Leuven, Department of Oncology - Laboratory Experimental Radiotherapy, Leuven, Belgium.
² UZ Leuven - University Hospitals Leuven, Department of Radiation Oncology, Leuven, Belgium.
³ University of Torino, Department of Oncology, Torino, Italy.
⁴ UCLouvain - Université Catholique de Louvain, Institut de Recherche Expérimentale et Clinique, Center of Molecular Imaging, Radiotherapy and Oncology (MIRO), Sint-Lambrechts-Woluwe, Belgium.

Abstract

While proton therapy offers an excellent dose conformity and sparing of organs at risk, this can be compromised by uncertainties, e.g. organ motion. This study aimed to investigate the influence of cardiac motion on the contoured oesophagus using electrocardiogram-triggered imaging and to assess the impact of this motion on the robustness of proton therapy plans in oesophageal cancer patients. Limited cardiac-induced motion of the oesophagus was observed with a negligible impact on the robustness of proton therapy plans. Therefore, our data suggest that cardiac motion may be safely ignored in the robust optimisation strategy for proton planning in oesophageal cancer.

Keywords: Cardiac motion; Oesophageal cancer; Proton therapy.