A novel implementation of mARC treatment for non-dedicated planning systems using converted IMRT plans

Abstract

BackgroundThe modulated arc (mARC) technique has recently been introduced by Siemens as an analogue to VMAT treatment. However, up to now only one certified treatment planning system supports mARC planning. We therefore present a conversion algorithm capable of converting IMRT plans created by any treatment planning system into mARC plans, with the hope of expanding the availability of mARC to a larger range of clinical users and researchers. As additional advantages, our implementation offers improved functionality for planning hybrid arcs and provides an equivalent step-and-shoot plan for each mARC plan, which can be used as a back-up concept in institutions where only one linac is equipped with mARC.MethodsWe present a feasibility study to outline a practical implementation of mARC plan conversion using Philips Pinnacle and Prowess Panther. We present examples for three different kinds of prostate and head-and-neck plans, for 6 MV and flattening-filter-free (FFF) 7 MV photon energies, which are dosimetrically verified.ResultsIt is generally more difficult to create good quality IMRT plans in Pinnacle using a large number of beams and few segments. We present different ways of optimization as examples. By careful choosing the beam and segment arrangement and inversion objectives, we achieve plan qualities similar to our usual IMRT plans. The conversion of the plans to mARC format yields functional plans, which can be irradiated without incidences. Absolute dosimetric verification of both the step-and-shoot and mARC plans by point dose measurements showed deviations below 5% local dose, mARC plans deviated from step-and-shoot plans by no more than 1%. The agreement between GafChromic film measurements of planar dose before and after mARC conversion is excellent. The comparison of the 3D dose distribution measured by PTW Octavius 729 2D-Array with the step-and-shoot plans and with the TPS is well above the pass criteria of 90% of the points falling within 5% local dose and 3 mm distance to agreement. For all plans, the treatment time was noticeably reduced by conversion to mARC.ConclusionsWe present the feasibility test for converting IMRT step-and-shoot plans from the RTP-output of any treatment planning system (Philips Pinnacle and Prowess Panther, in our case) into mARC plans. The feasibility and dosimetric equivalence is demonstrated for the examples of a prostate and a head-and-neck patient.

Planning for mARC treatments with the Eclipse treatment planning system

“…Until recently, there was only one commercial planning system (Prowess Panther, Prowess Inc, Concord, CA) capable of planning for mARC deliveries. To address this limited availability of commercial mARC treatment planning system, a methodology (15) was proposed to convert IMRT plans from any commercial treatment planning system into mARC plans. More recently, at least three other commercial systems have been released for planning for mARC treatments, namely 1) Monaco 5 (Elekta AB, Stockholm, Sweden), 2) RayStation 2.5 (RaySearch Laboratories AB, Stockholm, Sweden), and 3) Eclipse 13.5 (Varian Medical Systems, Palo Alto, CA).…”

mARC vs. IMRT radiotherapy of the prostate with flat and flattening-filter-free beam energies

“…The mARC (“modulated arc”) technique has recently been introduced as a rotational intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) technique for Siemens linear accelerators [ 1 , 2 ]. Although the dosimetric accuracy has been assessed by various methods and first patient treatment has been reported [ 3 , 4 ], no systematic planning studies have yet been carried out to assess the quality of mARC treatment as compared with IMRT delivered at the same linear accelerator.…”

VMAT to arclet plan conversion in a treatment planning system

“…In an initial attempt to resolve these issues, we developed a conversion algorithm capable of converting step-andshoot IMRT plans into mARC [3]. However, this had the drawback of switching between operating systems, manual manipulations, and a non-closed-loop export-import workflow.…”