ABSTRACT
PURPOSE
The American Association of Physicists in Medicine (AAPM) code of practice for brachytherapy
physics recommends performing an independent treatment time calculation. For this
we implemented an easy to use isodose-based verification method for HDR (high-dose-rate)
and LDR (low-dose-rate) brachytherapy plans.
MATERIAL AND METHODS
Dose-volume-based methods have been developed for Ir-192-based high-dose-rate (HDR)
and I-125 prostate low-dose-rate (LDR) brachytherapy. They allow checking the integral
dwell time or activity when the volume of a suitable isodose is known. The verification
method was validated for 55 clinical HDR and 243 clinical LDR plans.
RESULTS
For HDR brachytherapy, the mean absolute difference between the estimated and calculated
integral dwell time was 0.8% ± 1.0% (n = 30) with a single-source path and 2.7% ± 1.1% (n = 25) for multiple source paths. The corresponding value for LDR brachytherapy was
1.8% ± 2.0% (n = 243). In HDR brachytherapy, the verification method depends slightly on the plan
class when considering one or more than one source paths. Good agreement between the
estimated and calculated integral dwell times was obtained based on the 2 Gy isodose.
Unlike HDR brachytherapy, the parameters used in the verification method for LDR brachytherapy
plan verification strongly depend on the type of seed distribution. So, we recommend
using an isodose at the prescribed dose for prostate HDR therapy.
CONCLUSIONS
Isodose-based verification methods are precise, do not presuppose dedicated tools,
and are simple to implement in clinical practice.
Keywords
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References
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: January 10, 2023
Accepted:
December 19,
2022
Received in revised form:
December 19,
2022
Received:
August 30,
2022
Publication stage
In Press Corrected ProofFootnotes
Disclosures: The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper
Identification
Copyright
© 2022 American Brachytherapy Society. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
