Validation of esophageal cancer treatment methods from 3D-CRT, IMRT, and Rapid Arc plans using custom Python software to compare radiobiological plans to normal tissue integral dosage.

BACKGROUND

The aim was to develop in-house software that is able to calculate and generate the biological plan evaluation of the esophagus treatment plan using the Niemierko model for normal tissue complication probability and tumor control probability. The Niemierko model can be applied for esophagus cancer treatment plan to estimate the tumor control probability (TCP) and the normal tissue complication probability (NTCP) using different planning techniques. The equivalent uniform dose (EUD) and effective volume parameters were compared with organ at risk. Subsequently, EUD and TCP parameter were compared with tumor volume for all five different planning techniques.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Ten cases for esophageal cancer were included in this study. For each patient, five treatment plans were generated. The Anisotropic analytical algorithms (AAA) were used for dose calculation for the three-dimensional conformal radiation therapy (3D-CRT), intensity modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) and volumetric modulated arc therapy (VMAT) techniques. The in-house developed radiobiological plan evaluation software using python programming is used for this study which takes a dose volume histogram (DVH) text file as an input file for biological plan evaluation.

RESULTS AND CONCLUSION

EUD, NTCP, TCP and effective volume were calculated from the Niemierko model using the in-house developed python based software and compared with treatment monitor units (MU) with all five different treatment plan. The best technique is quantified as benchmarked out of other different qualities of treatment. The four field 3D-CRT treatment plan is found to be the best suited from the perspective of biological plan index evaluation among the other planning techniques.