Timing matters: diurnal spine length variation in pediatric patients during radiotherapy.

Background: During the day-night cycle, gravity and applied stress to the body mass and spine causes a decrease in body height, which is restored overnight. This diurnal spine length variation has not yet been quantified during radiotherapy. Therefore, we aimed to quantify diurnal spine length variation on cone beam CTs (CBCTs) of pediatric patients (< 18 years) who underwent radiotherapy.

Auto-contouring of cardiac substructures for Stereotactic arrhythmia radioablation (STAR): A STOPSTORM.eu consortium study.

Background/purpose: High doses to healthy cardiac substructures (CS) in stereotactic arrhythmia radioablation (STAR) raise concerns regarding potential treatment-induced cardio-toxicity. However, CS contours are not routinely created, hindering the understanding of the CS dose-effect relationships. To address this issue, the alignment of CS contouring was initiated within the STOPSTORM consortium.

Refining Treatment Planning in STereotactic Arrhythmia Radioablation: Benchmark Results and Consensus Statement From the STOPSTORM.eu Consortium.

Purpose: STereotactic Arrhythmia Radioablation (STAR) showed promising results in patients with refractory ventricular tachycardia. However, clinical data are scarce and heterogeneous. The STOPSTORM.

Refining critical structure contouring in STereotactic Arrhythmia Radioablation (STAR): Benchmark results and consensus guidelines from the STOPSTORM.eu consortium.

Background And Purpose: In patients with recurrent ventricular tachycardia (VT), STereotactic Arrhythmia Radioablation (STAR) shows promising results. The STOPSTORM.eu consortium was established to investigate and harmonise STAR treatment in Europe.

Interobserver variability in target definition for stereotactic arrhythmia radioablation.

Background: Stereotactic arrhythmia radioablation (STAR) is a potential new therapy for patients with refractory ventricular tachycardia (VT). The arrhythmogenic substrate (target) is synthesized from clinical and electro-anatomical information. This study was designed to evaluate the baseline interobserver variability in target delineation for STAR.

Diaphragm and abdominal organ motion during radiotherapy: a comprehensive multicenter study in 189 children.

Background: For accurate thoracic and abdominal radiotherapy, inter- and intrafractional geometrical uncertainties need to be considered to enable accurate margin sizes. We aim to quantify interfractional diaphragm and abdominal organ position variations, and intrafractional diaphragm motion in a large multicenter cohort of pediatric cancer patients (< 18 years). We investigated the correlation of interfractional position variations and intrafractional motion with age, and with general anesthesia (GA).

STereotactic Arrhythmia Radioablation (STAR): the Standardized Treatment and Outcome Platform for Stereotactic Therapy Of Re-entrant tachycardia by a Multidisciplinary consortium (STOPSTORM.eu) and review of current patterns of STAR practice in Europe.

The EU Horizon 2020 Framework-funded Standardized Treatment and Outcome Platform for Stereotactic Therapy Of Re-entrant tachycardia by a Multidisciplinary (STOPSTORM) consortium has been established as a large research network for investigating STereotactic Arrhythmia Radioablation (STAR) for ventricular tachycardia (VT). The aim is to provide a pooled treatment database to evaluate patterns of practice and outcomes of STAR and finally to harmonize STAR within Europe. The consortium comprises 31 clinical and research institutions.

Patterns of Hearing Loss in Irradiated Survivors of Head and Neck Rhabdomyosarcoma.

Purpose: The frequency and patterns of HL in a HNRMS survivor cohort were investigated. A dose-effect relationship between the dose to the cochlea and HL was explored.

Methods: Dutch survivors treated for HNRMS between 1993 and 2017 with no relapse and at least two years after the end of treatment were eligible for inclusion.

Validation and Comparison of Radiograph-Based Organ Dose Reconstruction Approaches for Wilms Tumor Radiation Treatment Plans.

Purpose: Our purpose was to validate and compare the performance of 4 organ dose reconstruction approaches for historical radiation treatment planning based on 2-dimensional radiographs.

Methods And Materials: We considered 10 patients with Wilms tumor with planning computed tomography images for whom we developed typical historic Wilms tumor radiation treatment plans, using anteroposterior and posteroanterior parallel-opposed 6 MV flank fields, normalized to 14.4 Gy.

Pediatric radiotherapy for thoracic and abdominal targets: Organ motion, reported margin sizes, and delineation variations - A systematic review.

For radiotherapy of thoracic and abdominal tumors safety margins are applied to address geometrical uncertainties caused by e.g. set-up errors, organ motion and delineation variability.

Standardizing the Cardiac Radioablation Targeting Workflow: Enabling Semi-Automated Angulation and Segmentation of the Heart According to the American Heart Association Segmented Model.

Purpose: Cardiac radioablation has evolved as a potential treatment modality for therapy-refractory ventricular tachycardia. To standardize cardiac radioablation treatments, promote accurate communication and target identification, and to assess toxicity, robust, and reproducible methods for angulation and cardiac segmentation are paramount. In this study, we developed and evaluated a tool for semiautomated angulation and segmentation according to the American Heart Association 17-segment model.

Surrogate-free machine learning-based organ dose reconstruction for pediatric abdominal radiotherapy.

To study radiotherapy-related adverse effects, detailed dose information (3D distribution) is needed for accurate dose-effect modeling. For childhood cancer survivors who underwent radiotherapy in the pre-CT era, only 2D radiographs were acquired, thus 3D dose distributions must be reconstructed from limited information. State-of-the-art methods achieve this by using 3D surrogate anatomies.

Automatic generation of three-dimensional dose reconstruction data for two-dimensional radiotherapy plans for historically treated patients.

Performing large-scale three-dimensional radiation dose reconstruction for patients requires a large amount of manual work. We present an image processing-based pipeline to automatically reconstruct radiation dose. The pipeline was designed for childhood cancer survivors that received abdominal radiotherapy with anterior-to-posterior and posterior-to-anterior field set-up.

An overview of radiological manifestations of acquired dental developmental disturbances in paediatric head and neck cancer survivors.

Objectives: In paediatric cancer survivors treated with chemotherapy and radiotherapy therapy, late effects on dental development are quite common. Oral radiologists are not familiar with the radiographic images of these specific dental consequences of chemotherapy and radiotherapy. With the goal of educating colleagues, to raise awareness of the needs of survivors, and to identify directions for future research, we present dental radiographs of survivors treated for head and neck rhabdomyosarcoma with chemotherapy and radiotherapy.

How do patient characteristics and anatomical features correlate to accuracy of organ dose reconstruction for Wilms' tumor radiation treatment plans when using a surrogate patient's CT scan?

In retrospective radiation treatment (RT) dosimetry, a surrogate anatomy is often used for patients without 3D CT. To gain insight in what the crucial aspects in a surrogate anatomy are to enable accurate dose reconstruction, we investigated the relation of patient characteristics and internal anatomical features with deviations in reconstructed organ dose using surrogate patient's CT scans. Abdominal CT scans of 35 childhood cancer patients (age: 2.

Management of vertebral radiotherapy dose in paediatric patients with cancer: consensus recommendations from the SIOPE radiotherapy working group.

Inhomogeneities in radiotherapy dose distributions covering the vertebrae in children can produce long-term spinal problems, including kyphosis, lordosis, scoliosis, and hypoplasia. In the published literature, many often interrelated variables have been reported to affect the extent of potential radiotherapy damage to the spine. Articles published in the 2D and 3D radiotherapy era instructed radiation oncologists to avoid dose inhomogeneity over growing vertebrae.

The effectiveness of 4DCT in children and adults: A pooled analysis.

Background: While four-dimensional computed tomography (4DCT) is extensively used in adults, reluctance remains to use 4DCT in children. Day-to-day (interfractional) variability and irregular respiration (intrafractional variability) have shown to be limiting factors of 4DCT effectiveness in adults. In order to evaluate 4DCT applicability in children, the purpose of this study is to quantify inter- and intrafractional variability of respiratory motion in children and adults.

Re‑irradiation plus hyperthermia for recurrent pediatric sarcoma; a simulation study to investigate feasibility.

Recurrent pediatric tumors pose a challenge since treatment options may be limited, particularly after previous irradiation. Positive results have been reported for chemotherapy and hyperthermia, but the combination of re‑irradiation and hyperthermia has not been investigated thus far, although it is a proven treatment strategy in adults. The theoretical feasibility of re‑irradiation plus hyperthermia was investigated for infield recurrent pediatric sarcoma in the pelvic region and the extremities.

Predictive value of pediatric respiratory-induced diaphragm motion quantified using pre-treatment 4DCT and CBCTs.

Background: In adults, a single pre-treatment four-dimensional CT (4D-CT) acquisition is often used to account for respiratory-induced target motion during radiotherapy. However, studies have indicated that a 4D-CT is not always representative for respiratory motion. Our aim was to investigate whether respiratory-induced diaphragm motion in children on a single pre-treatment 4DCT can accurately predict respiratory-induced diaphragm motion as observed on cone beam CTs (CBCTs).