UCLA

Purpose

To develop and validate a technique for radiation therapy gating using slow (≤1 frame per second) magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and a motion model. Proposed uses of the technique include radiation therapy gating using T2-weighted images and conducting additional imaging studies during gated treatments.

Methods and materials

The technique uses a physiologically guided breathing motion model to interpolate deformed target position between 2-dimensional (2D) MRI images acquired every 1 to 3 seconds. The model is parameterized by a 1-dimensional respiratory bellows surrogate and is continuously updated with the most recently acquired 2D images. A phantom and 8 volunteers were imaged with a 0.35T MRI-guided radiation therapy system. A balanced steady-state free precession sequence with a 2D frame rate of 3 frames per second was used to evaluate the technique. The accuracy and beam-on positive predictive value (PPV) of the model-based gating decisions were evaluated using the gating decisions derived from imaging as a ground truth. A T2-weighted gating offline proof-of-concept study using a half-Fourier, single-shot, turbo-spin echo sequence is reported.

Results

Model-interpolated gating accuracy, beam-on PPV, and median absolute distances between model and image-tracked target centroids were, on average, 98.3%, 98.4%, and 0.33 mm, respectively, in the balanced steady-state free precession phantom studies and 93.7%, 92.1%, and 0.86 mm, respectively, in the volunteer studies. T2 model-interpolated gating in 6 volunteers yielded an average accuracy and PPV of 94.3% and 92.5%, respectively, and the mean absolute median distance between modeled and imaged target centroids was 0.86 mm.

Conclusions

This work demonstrates the concept of model-interpolated gating for MRI-guided radiation therapy. The technique was found to be potentially sufficiently accurate for clinical use. Further development is needed to accommodate out-of-plane motion and the use of an internal MR-based respiratory surrogate.