Personalizing radiotherapy with adaptive radiotherapy: Interest and challenges

Abstract

Adaptive radiotherapy (ART) is a recent development in radiotherapy technology and treatment personalization that allows treatment to be tailored to the daily anatomical changes of patients. While it was until recently only performed “offline”, i.e. between two radiotherapy sessions, it is now possible during ART to perform a daily online adaptive process for a given patient. Therefore, ART allows a daily customization to ensure optimal coverage of the treatment target volumes with minimized margins, taking into account only the uncertainties related to the adaptive process itself. This optimization appears particularly relevant in case of daily variations in the positioning of the target volume or of the organs at risk (OAR) associated with a proximity of these volumes and a tenuous therapeutic index. ART aims to minimize severe acute and late toxicity and allows tumor dose escalation. These new achievements have been possible thanks to technological development, the contribution of new multimodal and onboard imaging modalities and the integration of artificial intelligence tools for the contouring, planning and delivery of radiation therapy. Online ART is currently available on two types of radiotherapy machines: MR-linear accelerators and recently CBCT-linear accelerators. We will first describe the benefits, advantages, constraints and limitations of each of these two modalities, as well as the online adaptive process itself. We will then evaluate the clinical situations for which online adaptive radiotherapy is particularly indicated on MR- and CBCT-linear accelerators. Finally, we will detail some challenges and possible solutions in the development of online ART in the coming years.