J Appl Clin Med Phys
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J Appl Clin Med Phys · May 2013
Volumetric-modulated arc therapy for the treatment of a large planning target volume in thoracic esophageal cancer.
Recently, volumetric-modulated arc therapy (VMAT) has demonstrated the ability to deliver radiation dose precisely and accurately with a shorter delivery time compared to conventional intensity-modulated fixed-field treatment (IMRT). We applied the hypothesis of VMAT technique for the treatment of thoracic esophageal carcinoma to determine superior or equivalent conformal dose coverage for a large thoracic esophageal planning target volume (PTV) with superior or equivalent sparing of organs-at-risk (OARs) doses, and reduce delivery time and monitor units (MUs), in comparison with conventional fixed-field IMRT plans. We also analyzed and compared some other important metrics of treatment planning and treatment delivery for both IMRT and VMAT techniques. ⋯ The key benefit for VMATI was the reduction in treatment delivery time and MUs, and improvement in dose conformality. In our study, we found no significant difference in VMATII over single-arc VMATI for PTV coverage or OARs doses. However, we observed significant increase in delivery time for VMATII compared to VMATI.