Dosimetric Study of Lung Modulation and Motion Effects in Carbon ion Therapy for Lung Cancer

TL;DR

This study quantifies how tumor motion and dose modulation affect carbon ion therapy for lung cancer, revealing interplay reduces target coverage and modulation can partially compensate, with effects mitigated by 4D optimization and fractionation.

Contribution

It provides a detailed dosimetric analysis of interplay and modulation effects in lung carbon ion therapy, highlighting their individual and combined impacts using patient-specific data.

Findings

Interplay reduces target coverage metrics significantly.

Extreme modulation power causes minor dose degradations.

4D optimization and fractionation mitigate interplay effects.

Abstract

Carbon-ion radiotherapy provides high dose conformity for lung cancer, but its benefit is limited by two sources of uncertainties: interplay between scanned beam delivery and tumor motion, and dose modulation from heterogeneous lung tissue. This study quantifies the separate and combined dosimetric impact of these effects using the GSI TRiP4D treatment planning system. Eighteen lung cancer 4DCT datasets from TCIA were analyzed. A modulation power ($P_{\mathrm{mod}}$) was assigned to lung voxels. Three values were sampled from a Gaussian distribution ($200\mu\mathrm{m} \pm 67\mu\mathrm{m}$), and an extreme value of $750\mu\mathrm{m}$ was tested. Interplay doses were computed by combining scanned-beam delivery with patient-specific respiratory motion. Four scenarios were studied: static, static with modulation, interplay, and interplay with modulation. Metrics included $D95\%$, $V95\%$, homogeneity index (HI), lung $V16\mathrm{Gy}$, and heart $V20\mathrm{Gy}$. Interplay reduced target coverage by $5.2 \pm 1.5$ pp ($D95\%$), $12.1 \pm 5.9$ pp ($V95\%$), and $8.3 \pm 2.4$ pp (HI). Extreme $P_{\mathrm{mod}}$ alone caused small degradations. When combined with interplay, it partially compensated the loss. This effect decreased with 4D optimization. Fractionation mitigated interplay, leaving lung modulation as the main residual effect.