• The Journal of Korean Society for Radiation Therapy
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.57-67
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• 2013

Purpose: Replacing the film which used to be used for checking the set-up of the patient and dosimetry during radiation therapy, more and more EPID equipped devices are in use at present. Accordingly, this article tried to evaluated the accuracy of the position check-up and the usefulness of dosimetry during the use of an electronic portal imaging device. Materials and Methods: On 50 materials acquired with the search of Korea Society Radiotherapeutic Technology, The Korean Society for Radiation Oncology, and Pubmed using "EPID", "Portal dosimetry", "Portal image", "Dose verification", "Quality control", "Cine mode", "Quality - assurance", and "In vivo dosimetry" as indexes, the usefulness of EPID was analyzed by classifying them as history of EPID and dosimetry, set-up verification and characteristics of EPID. Results: EPID is developed from the first generation of Liquid-filled ionization chamber, through the second generation of Camera-based fluoroscopy, and to the third generation of Amorphous-silicon EPID imaging modes can be divided into EPID mode, Cine mode and Integrated mode. When evaluating absolute dose accuracy of films and EPID, it was found that EPID showed within 1% and EDR2 film showed within 3% errors. It was confirmed that EPID is better in error measurement accuracy than film. When gamma analyzing the dose distribution of the base exposure plane which was calculated from therapy planning system, and planes calculated by EDR2 film and EPID, both film and EPID showed less than 2% of pixels which exceeded 1 at gamma values (r%>1) with in the thresholds such as 3%/3 mm and 2%/2 mm respectively. For the time needed for full course QA in IMRT to compare loads, EDR2 film recorded approximately 110 minutes, and EPID recorded approximately 55 minutes. Conclusion: EPID could easily replace conventional complicated and troublesome film and ionization chamber which used to be used for dosimetry and set-up verification, and it was proved to be very efficient and accurate dosimetry device in quality assurance of IMRT (intensity modulated radiation therapy). As cine mode imaging using EPID allows locating tumors in real-time without additional dose in lung and liver which are mobile according to movements of diaphragm and in rectal cancer patients who have unstable position, it may help to implement the most optimal radiotherapy for patients.

• Progress in Medical Physics
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.91-98
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• 2012

Verification of internal organ motion during treatment and its feedback is essential to accurate dose delivery to the moving target. We developed an offline based internal organ motion verification system (IMVS) using cine EPID images and evaluated its accuracy and availability through phantom study. For verification of organ motion using live cine EPID images, a pattern matching algorithm using an internal surrogate, which is very distinguishable and represents organ motion in the treatment field, like diaphragm, was employed in the self-developed analysis software. For the system performance test, we developed a linear motion phantom, which consists of a human body shaped phantom with a fake tumor in the lung, linear motion cart, and control software. The phantom was operated with a motion of 2 cm at 4 sec per cycle and cine EPID images were obtained at a rate of 3.3 and 6.6 frames per sec (2 MU/frame) with $1,024{\times}768$ pixel counts in a linear accelerator (10 MVX). Organ motion of the target was tracked using self-developed analysis software. Results were compared with planned data of the motion phantom and data from the video image based tracking system (RPM, Varian, USA) using an external surrogate in order to evaluate its accuracy. For quantitative analysis, we analyzed correlation between two data sets in terms of average cycle (peak to peak), amplitude, and pattern (RMS, root mean square) of motion. Averages for the cycle of motion from IMVS and RPM system were $3.98{\pm}0.11$ (IMVS 3.3 fps), $4.005{\pm}0.001$ (IMVS 6.6 fps), and $3.95{\pm}0.02$ (RPM), respectively, and showed good agreement on real value (4 sec/cycle). Average of the amplitude of motion tracked by our system showed $1.85{\pm}0.02$ cm (3.3 fps) and $1.94{\pm}0.02$ cm (6.6 fps) as showed a slightly different value, 0.15 (7.5% error) and 0.06 (3% error) cm, respectively, compared with the actual value (2 cm), due to time resolution for image acquisition. In analysis of pattern of motion, the value of the RMS from the cine EPID image in 3.3 fps (0.1044) grew slightly compared with data from 6.6 fps (0.0480). The organ motion verification system using sequential cine EPID images with an internal surrogate showed good representation of its motion within 3% error in a preliminary phantom study. The system can be implemented for clinical purposes, which include organ motion verification during treatment, compared with 4D treatment planning data, and its feedback for accurate dose delivery to the moving target.

• Progress in Medical Physics
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• v.30 no.3
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• pp.65-73
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• 2019

Purpose: We evaluated the motion-induced dosimetric effects on the field-in-field (FIF) technique for whole-breast irradiation (WBI) using actual patient organ motion data obtained from cine electronic portal imaging device (cine EPID) images during treatment. Materials and Methods: Ten breast cancer patients who received WBI after breast-conserving surgery were selected. The static FIF (SFIF) plan involved the application of two parallel opposing tangential and boost FIFs. To obtain the amplitude of the internal organ motion during treatment, cine EPID images were acquired five times for each patient. The outside contour of the breast (OCB) and chest wall (CW) contour were tracked using in-house motion analysis software. Intrafractional organ motion was analyzed. The dynamic FIF (DFIF) reflecting intrafractional organ motion incorporated into the SFIF plan was calculated and compared with the SFIF in terms of the dose homogeneity index (DHI_90/10) for the target and V₂₀ for the ipsilateral lung. Results: The average motion amplitudes along the X and Y directions were 1.84±1.09 mm and 0.69±0.50 mm for OCB and 1.88±1.07 mm and 1.66±1.49 mm for CW, respectively. The maximum motion amplitudes along the X and Y directions were 5.53 and 2.08 mm for OCB and 5.22 and 6.79 mm for CW, respectively. Significant differences in DHI_90/10 values were observed between SFIF and DFIF (0.94 vs 0.95, P<0.05) in statistical analysis. The average V₂₀ for the lung in the DFIF was slightly higher than that of the SFIF in statistical analysis (19.21 vs 19.00, P<0.05). Conclusion: Our findings indicate that the FIF technique can form a safe and effective treatment method for WBI. Regular monitoring using cine EPID images can be effective in reducing motion-induced dosimetric errors.

• The Journal of Korean Society for Radiation Therapy
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.297-303
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• 2014

Purpose : The purpose of this study is reproducibility evaluation of deep inspiration breath-hold(DIBH) technique by respiration data and heart position analysis in radiation therapy for Left Breast cancer patients. Materials and Methods : Free breathing(FB) Computed Tomography(CT) images and DIBH CT images of three left breast cancer patients were used to evaluate the heart volume and dose during treatment planing system( Eclipse version 10.0, Varian, USA ). The signal of RPM (Real-time Position Management) Respiratory Gating System (version 1.7.5, Varian, USA) was used to evaluate respiration stability of DIBH during breast radiation therapy. The images for measurement of heart position were acquired by the Electronic portal imaging device(EPID) cine acquisition mode. The distance of heart at the three measuring points(A, B, C) on each image was measured by Offline Review (ARIA 10, Varian, USA). Results : Significant differences were found between the FB and DIBH plans for mean heart dose (6.82 vs. 1.91 Gy), heart $V_{30}$ (68.57 vs. $8.26cm^3$), $V_{20}$ (76.43 vs. $11.34cm^3$). The standard deviation of DIBH signal of each patient was ${\pm}0.07cm$, ${\pm}0.04cm$, ${\pm}0.13cm$, respectively. The Maximum and Minimum heart distance on EPID images were measured as 0.32 cm and 0.00 cm. Conclusion : Consequently, using the DIBH technique with radiation therapy for left breast cancer patients is very useful to establish the treatment plan and to reduce the heart dose. In addition, it is beneficial to using the Cine acquisition mode of EPID for the reproducibility evaluation of DIBH.