Dosimetric comparison of intracranial metastasis treatment using two radiosurgery systems: TrueBeam STx with VMAT and Gamma Knife Model 4C.

We compared treatment plan quality based on target coverage and normal brain tissue sparing for two intracranial stereotactic radiosurgery systems: TrueBeam STx using VMAT and Gamma Knife (GK). Ten patients with 24 tumors (seven with 1-2 and three with 4-6 ranging from 0.1 to 20.2 cc), previously treated with GK Model 4C (prescription doses ranging from 14-23 Gy), were re-planned for VMAT using Eclipse treatment planning system. Various photon beam energies and MLC leaf widths with and without jaw tracking were studied to achieve optimal plans. Plan qualities were assessed by target coverages using Paddick Conformity Index (PCI), normal-brain-tissue integral dose (Gy-cc) and sparing. In all cases critical structure dose criteria were met. The average PCI was 0.76±0.21 for VMAT and 0.46±0.20 for GK plans (p≤0.001), respectively. On average 81% reduction of 12 Gy normal-brain-tissue volumes was achieved by VMAT. The average integral dose ratio of GK to VMAT plans was 1.50±0.61 (p=0.006). VMAT was capable of producing higher quality treatment plans in terms of target coverage and normal brain tissue sparing than GK while using optimal beam geometries and optimization techniques.