Intrafraction motion in intra-cranial multi-target stereotactic radiosurgery plans: A multi-institutional investigation on robustness

Abstract

Purpose

Even with modern immobilisation devices, some amount of intrafraction patient motion is likely to occur during stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS) delivery. The aim of this work was to investigate how robustness of plans to intrafraction motion is affected by plan geometry and complexity.

Methods

In 2018, the Trans-Tasman Radiation Oncology Group conducted a multiple-target SRS international planning challenge, the data from which was utilised in this study. Patient geometry included five intracranial targets with a prescription of 20 Gy. A previously validated in-house algorithm was used to simulate realistic intrafraction patient motion for these plans. Three scenario types were simulated: translational intrafraction motion; rotational motion; and simultaneous rotational and translational motion. Dosimetric impact was assessed using: dose covering 98 % of planning target volume, dose covering 99 % of gross tumour volume (GTV D99%), volume of normal brain receiving 12 Gy and maximum dose covering 0.03 cc brainstem.

Results

GTV D99% was reduced by up to 70 %, with the strongest correlations between planning factors and robustness to intrafraction motion found for plan complexity. Despite only moderate correlation strength at r = 0.4, lower complexity plans had, on average, 5 % – 9 % less intrafraction motion scenarios with failing targets compared to the highest complexity plans.

Conclusions

SRS plans with lower complexity, in particular larger mean multi-leaf collimator (MLC) gap and MLC aperture irregularity, were shown to improve plan robustness to intrafraction patient motion.