Fully automated, multi-criterial planning for Volumetric Modulated Arc Therapy - An international multi-center validation for prostate cancer.

Background And Purpose: Reported plan quality improvements with autoplanning of radiotherapy of the prostate and seminal vesicles are poor. A system for automated multi-criterial planning has been validated for this treatment in a large international multi-center study. The system is configured with training plans using a mechanism that strives for quality improvements relative to those plans.

Fully automated VMAT treatment planning for advanced-stage NSCLC patients.

Purpose: To develop a fully automated procedure for multicriterial volumetric modulated arc therapy (VMAT) treatment planning (autoVMAT) for stage III/IV non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients treated with curative intent.

Materials And Methods: After configuring the developed autoVMAT system for NSCLC, autoVMAT plans were compared with manually generated clinically delivered intensity-modulated radiotherapy (IMRT) plans for 41 patients. AutoVMAT plans were also compared to manually generated VMAT plans in the absence of time pressure.

Single Vocal Cord Irradiation: Image Guided Intensity Modulated Hypofractionated Radiation Therapy for T1a Glottic Cancer: Early Clinical Results.

Purpose: To report, from a retrospective analysis of prospectively collected data, on the feasibility, outcome, toxicity, and voice-handicap index (VHI) of patients with T1a glottic cancer treated by a novel intensity modulated radiation therapy technique developed at our institution to treat only the involved vocal cord: single vocal cord irradiation (SVCI).

Methods And Materials: Thirty patients with T1a glottic cancer were treated by means of SVCI. Dose prescription was set to 16 × 3.

Unilateral neck irradiation for well-lateralized oropharyngeal cancer.

Background And Purpose: To investigate the impact of unilateral neck irradiation (UNI) of well-lateralized oropharyngeal cancer (OPC) on outcome and toxicity.

Materials And Methods: Unilateral neck IMRT was applied to 185 consecutive patients with well-lateralized OPC (restricted to tonsillar fossa, soft palate with at least 1cm from midline or lateral pharyngeal wall). Endpoints were regional control (RC), local control (LC), disease-free survival (DFS), overall survival (OS), and toxicity.

Toward fully automated multicriterial plan generation: a prospective clinical study.

Purpose: To prospectively compare plans generated with iCycle, an in-house-developed algorithm for fully automated multicriterial intensity modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) beam profile and beam orientation optimization, with plans manually generated by dosimetrists using the clinical treatment planning system.

Methods And Materials: For 20 randomly selected head-and-neck cancer patients with various tumor locations (of whom 13 received sequential boost treatments), we offered the treating physician the choice between an automatically generated iCycle plan and a manually optimized plan using standard clinical procedures. Although iCycle used a fixed "wish list" with hard constraints and prioritized objectives, the dosimetrists manually selected the beam configuration and fine tuned the constraints and objectives for each IMRT plan.