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Treatment Planning for Stereotactic Radiosurgery

  • Chapter
Principles and Practice of Stereotactic Radiosurgery

Abstract

This chapter provides an introduction to treatment-planning procedures for stereotactic radiosurgery. The chapter begins with a brief history of the history of radiosurgery planning. Next, it covers the basic steps followed in the development of radiosurgery treatment plans including imaging, contouring, selection of plan parameters, and evaluating treatment plan quality. The chapter concludes with discussions of treatment planning for each of a number of specific delivery techniques including the Gamma Knife, linear accelerators, CyberKnife, and proton therapy systems.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Radiation Oncology, Swedish Cancer Institute, Seattle, WA, USA

    David M. Shepard Ph.D.

  2. Department of Radiation Oncology, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA

    Cedric Yu D.Sc.

  3. Department of Radiation Oncology, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA, USA

    Martin J. Murphy Ph.D.

  4. Department of Radiation Oncology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, USA

    Marc Bussière M.Sc.

  5. Department of Neurosurgery, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA

    Frank J. Bova Ph.D.

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  1. David M. Shepard Ph.D.
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  2. Cedric Yu D.Sc.
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  3. Martin J. Murphy Ph.D.
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  4. Marc Bussière M.Sc.
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  5. Frank J. Bova Ph.D.
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to David M. Shepard Ph.D. .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Neurosurgery, SUNY Upstate Medical University, Syracuse, USA

    Lawrence S. Chin

  2. Dept. of Radiation Oncology, Univ. of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland, USA

    William F. Regine

Glossary

Conformity index 

Defined by the RTOG as the volume of the prescription isodose divided by the target volume.

Constraint 

A condition that must be satisfied during inverse treatment planning for a plan to be considered feasible. The most basic constraint is that all beam weights must be nonnegative.

Dose-volume histogram (DVH) 

A plot of the volume versus dose used to analyze the dose distribution on a structure by structure basis.

Forward treatment planning 

An iterative approach to planning where the user manually changes each of the plan parameters until an acceptable plan is obtained.

Homogeneity index 

Defined by the RTOG as the maximum dose in the treatment volume divided by the prescription dose.

Inverse treatment planning 

An automated approach to planning where the user defines the treatment goals and an optimization algorithm is run that determines the parameters that best meet the goals.

Micromultileaf collimator (mMLC) 

A device attached to or incorporated into the head of a linear accelerator used to define field shapes. As compared with a conventional multileaf collimator (MLC), the leaves of an mMLC are less wide and project to 5 mm or less in width at the isocenter.

Objective function 

A scoring function that reduces the entire treatment plan into a single numerical value that is to be either minimized or maximized.

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Shepard, D.M., Yu, C., Murphy, M.J., Bussière, M., Bova, F.J. (2015). Treatment Planning for Stereotactic Radiosurgery. In: Chin, L., Regine, W. (eds) Principles and Practice of Stereotactic Radiosurgery. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-8363-2_6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-8363-2_6

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