UC San Diego

Purpose

We recently developed a novel, open-source in vivo dosimetry that uses the electronic portal imaging device to detect dose delivery discrepancies. We applied our method on patients with rectal cancer treated on a belly board device.

Methods

In vivo dosimetry was performed on 10 patients with rectal cancer treated prone on the belly board with a 4-field box arrangement. Portal images were acquired approximately once per week from each treatment beam. Our dosimetry method used these images along with the planning CT to reconstruct patient planar dose at isocenter depth.

Results

Our algorithm proved sensitive to dose discrepancies and detected discordances in 7 patients. The majority of these were due to soft tissue differences between planning and treatment, present despite matching to bony anatomy. As a result of this work, quality assurance procedures have been implemented for our immobilization devices.

Conclusion

In vivo dosimetry is a powerful quality assurance tool that can detect delivery discrepancies, including changes in patient setup and position. The added information on actual dose delivery may be used to evaluate equipment and process quality and to guide for adaptive radiotherapy.