BackgroundComparing radiation treatment plans to ascertain the optimal intensity-modulated radiation technique for low-risk prostate cancer.MethodsTreatment plans for 20 randomly selected patients were generated using the same dose objectives. A dosimetric comparison was performed between various intensity-modulated techniques, including protons. All treatment plans provided conventional treatment with 79.2Gy. Dosimetric indices for the target volume and organs at risk (OAR), including homogeneity index and four conformity indices were analyzed.ResultsNo statistically significant differences between techniques were observed for homogeneity values. Dose distributions showed significant differences at low-to-medium doses. At doses above 50Gy all techniques revealed a steep dose gradient outside the planning target volume (PTV). Protons demonstrated superior rectum sparing at low-to-higher doses (V10-V70, P < .05) and bladder sparing at low-to-medium doses (V10–V30, P < .05). Helical tomotherapy (HT) provided superior rectum sparing compared to Sliding Window (SW) and Rapid Arc (RA) (V10–V70, P < .05). SW displayed superior bladder sparing compared to HT and RA (V10–V50, P < .05). Protons generated significantly higher femoral heads exposure and HT had superior sparing of those.ConclusionAll techniques are able to provide a homogeneous and highly conformal dose distribution. Protons demonstrated superior sparing of the rectum and bladder at a wide dose spectrum. The radiation technique itself as well as treatment planning algorithms result in different OAR sparing between HT, SW and RA, with superior rectum sparing by HT and superior bladder sparing by SW. Radiation plans can be further optimized by individual modification of dose objectives dependent on treatment plan strategy.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s13014-016-0707-6) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

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