Comparing interplay effects in scanned proton therapy of lung cancer: Free breathing with various layer and volume rescanning versus respiratory gating with different gate widths.

PURPOSE: We investigated interplay effects and treatment time (TT) in scanned proton therapy for lung cancer patients. We compared free-breathing (FB) approaches with multiple rescanning strategies and respiratory-gating (RG) methods with various gating widths to identify the superior irradiation technique.

METHODS

Plans were created with 4/1, 2/2, and 1/4 layered/volume rescans of FB (L4V1, L2V2, and L1V4), and 50%, 30%, and 10% gating widths of the total respiratory curves (G50, G30, and G10) of the RG plans with L4V1. We calculated 4-dimensional dynamic doses assuming a constant sinusoidal curve for six irradiation methods. The reconstructed doses per fraction were compared with planned doses in terms of dose differences in 99% clinical-target-volume (CTV) (ΔD99%), near-maximum dose differences (ΔD2%) at organs-at-risk (OARs), and TT.

RESULTS

The mean/minimum CTV ΔD99% values for FB were -1.0%/-4.9%, -0.8%/-4.3%, and -0.1%/-1.0% for L4V1, L2V2, and L1V4, respectively. Those for RG were -0.3%/-1.7%, -0.1%/-1.0%, and 0.0%/-0.5% for G50, G30, and G10, respectively. The CTV ΔD99% of the RGs with less than 50% gate width and the FBs of L1V4 were within the desired tolerance (±3.0%), and the OARs ΔD2% for RG were lower than those for FB. The mean TTs were 90, 326, 824, 158, 203, and 422 s for L4V1, L2V2, L1V4, G50, G30, and G10, respectively.

CONCLUSIONS

FB (L4V1) is the most efficient treatment, but not necessarily the optimal choice due to interplay effects. To satisfy both TT extensions and interplay, RG with a gate width as large as possible within safety limits is desirable.