To analyze the dose–volume histogram of the central shielding technique for cervical cancer radiotherapy by computing the composite three-dimensional EQD2 dose distributions of external-beam radiotherapy plus intracavitary brachytherapy.
Methods and Materials
On a phantom, three patterns of high-risk clinical target volume (HR-CTV) with right–left diameters of 3, 4, and 5 cm were created using clinical data. Four patterns of combinations of whole-pelvis irradiation plus “pelvis irradiation using the central shielding technique” (CS) (shielding width, 3 or 4 cm) were created: 20 Gy/10 fractions + 30 Gy/15 fractions, 30 Gy/15 fractions + 20 Gy/10 fractions, 40 Gy/20 fractions + 10 Gy/5 fractions, and 50 Gy/25 fractions + 0 Gy. The intracavitary brachytherapy plan was set as 24 Gy/4 fractions prescribed to the Point A. The HR-CTV D90/D98 and modeled bladder/rectum D2cc were computed using the composite EQD2 dose distributions of all the treatment combinations.
Results
If appropriate combinations of the treatment plans were selected on the basis of the CS doses and the HR-CTV sizes, the D90/D98 of HR-CTV 3 cm, HR-CTV 4 cm, and HR-CTV 5 cm were 89.7 Gy/80.6 Gy, 77.3 Gy/72.0 Gy, and 73.0 Gy/69.2 Gy in the case of CS width 3 cm, respectively; and 86.2 Gy/76.0 Gy, 73.3 Gy/67.6 Gy, and 70.9 Gy/67.1 Gy in the case of CS width 4 cm, respectively. The contributions of CS to the HR-CTV D90/bladder D2cc/rectum D2cc values were 24–56%/28–32%/9% of the CS plan doses for shielding width of 3 cm and were 13–35%/11–16%/5–6% for shielding width of 4 cm.
Conclusion
The dose contributions of CS were variable but not negligible when analyzing the total doses delivered to the HR-CTV.
