Applying voxel-based analysis to oropharyngeal cancer proton therapy patients: a correlation study on radiation-induced acute dysphagia

TL;DR

This study applies voxel-based analysis to proton therapy for oropharyngeal cancer, identifying specific voxels associated with radiation-induced acute dysphagia, and compares different RBE models for dose calculation.

Contribution

It introduces a VBA approach for proton therapy patients, using delivered doses and multiple RBE models, which is novel compared to previous photon-based studies.

Findings

Identified voxels correlated with acute dysphagia.

Compared effects of different RBE models on dose-toxicity correlation.

Demonstrated VBA's potential for personalized toxicity prediction.

Abstract

Background: Voxel-based analysis (VBA) is an analytic approach to evaluate correlations between local dose and the development of different toxicities. DVHs are used for toxicity prediction as well. Compared with DVH, no contours are required for VBA technique and results tell specific voxels that may be related to the toxicity instead of the whole contoured area. The VBA has been used on different cancer sites and for different toxicities. Most of these studies included patients treated with photon, all published studies were based on planned dose and VBA tools used were developed in house. In our study, patient cohort were treated with proton, our VBA tool was developed based on RayStation and doses fed to the VBA tool were delivered doses with constant and two variable RBE models.