Preliminary study of feasibility of surface-guided radiotherapy with concurrent tumor treating fields for glioblastoma: region of interest

To evaluate the impact of the residual setup errors from differently shaped region of interest (ROI) and investigate if surface-guided setup can be used in radiotherapy with concurrent tumor treating fields (TTFields) for glioblastoma.

Fifteen patients undergone glioblastoma radiotherapy with concurrent TTFields were involved. Firstly, four shapes of region of interest (ROI) (strip-shaped, T-shaped, \(\perp\) $\perp$ -shaped and cross-shaped) with medium size relative to the whole face were defined dedicate for patients wearing TTFields transducer arrays. Then, ROI-shape-dependent residual setup errors in six degrees were evaluated using an anthropomorphic head and neck phantom taking CBCT data as reference. Finally, the four types of residual setup errors were converted into corresponding dosimetry deviations (including the target coverage and the organ at risk sparing) of the fifteen radiotherapy plans using a feasible and robust geometric-transform-based method.

The algebraic sum of the average residual setup errors in six degrees (mm in translational directions and ° in rotational directions) of the four types were 6.9, 1.1, 4.1 and 3.5 respectively. In terms of the ROI-shape-dependent dosimetry deviations, the D_98% of PTV dropped off by (3.4 ± 2.0)% (p < 0.05), (0.3 ± 0.5)% (p < 0.05), (0.9 ± 0.9)% (p < 0.05) and (1.1 ± 0.8)% (p < 0.05). The D_98% of CTV dropped off by (0.5 ± 0.6)% (p < 0.05) for the strip-shaped ROI while remained unchanged for others.

Surface-guided setup is feasible in radiotherapy with concurrent TTFields and a medium-sized T-shaped ROI is appropriate for the surface-based guidance.