title: A study of quality control method for IMRT planning based on prior knowledge and novel measures derived from both OVHs and DVHs.
abstract: Intensity-Modulated Radiation Therapy (IMRT) mathematically forms a large-scale optimization problem. The development of an IMRT plan is computationally expensive resulting in time-consuming, inefficient, and difficult to develop high-quality IMRT plans. By combining prior knowledge with proposed novel measures derived from both Overlap Volume Histogram (OVH) descriptors and Dose Volume Histograms (DVHs), a novel quality control method for IMRT planning is proposed to assure the high quality of IMRT plan. Clinical approved nasopharyngeal IMRT plans were employed for the experiments, where the reference plan is firstly retrieved from IMRT plan database for each query case by using measures derived from both OVH descriptors and DVHs. Then the DVHs of the reference plan are served as additional goals for the IMRT plan re-optimization. The experimental results show that the proposed method can effectively pick out those IMRT plans, whose quality could be improved substantially (i.e. the doses of their Clinical Targets Volume (CTV) could be effectively increased) and the dose of their Organs at Risk (OARs) could be reduced after the IMRT plan has being re-optimized. In conclusion, the proposed methods can effectively guarantee the high quality of the IMRT planning.
authors.affiliation: Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing 210016, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Zhengdong
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Zhou
authors.affiliation: Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing 210016, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Yuanhua
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing 210016, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Zili
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Yu
authors.affiliation: Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing 210016, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Dongdong
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: State Key Lab of Mechanics and Control of Mechanical Structures, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing 210016, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Chunsheng
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Zhao
authors.affiliation: School of Information & Control, Nanjing University of Information Science & Technology, Nanjing 210044, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Jun
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiation Oncology, Jiangsu Province Hospital of TCM, Nanjing 210029, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Wei
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Song
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiation Oncology, Nanjing General Hospital of Nanjing Military Command, Nanjing, 210002, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Bing
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiation Oncology, Nanjing General Hospital of Nanjing Military Command, Nanjing, 210002, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Junshu
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Shen
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiation Oncology, Nanjing General Hospital of Nanjing Military Command, Nanjing, 210002, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Xixu
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Zhu
mesh_terms: D002277:Carcinoma; D002681:China; D003627:Data Interpretation, Statistical; D006801:Humans; D000077274:Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma; D009303:Nasopharyngeal Neoplasms / Q000532:radiotherapy*; D011785:Quality Assurance, Health Care / Q000379:methods / Q000592:standards*; D011786:Quality Control; D011879:Radiotherapy Dosage; D011880:Radiotherapy Planning, Computer-Assisted / Q000379:methods / Q000592:standards*; D020266:Radiotherapy, Conformal / Q000592:standards*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D016896:Treatment Outcome
keywords: Intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT); overlap volume histogram (OVH); prior knowledge; quality control