Radiobiological effectiveness and its role in modelling secondary cancer risk for proton therapy

Conference Paper
Madkhali, A . 2016
Publication Work Type: 
Poster
Tags: 
RBE, radiotherapy, secondary cancer risk
Conference Name: 
American Society for Radiation Oncology Annual Meeting -2016
Conference Location: 
Boston, MA, USA
Conference Date: 
Sunday, September 25, 2016
Sponsoring Organization: 
ASTRO
Publication Abstract: 

Radiobiological effectiveness and its role in modelling secondary cancer risk for proton therapy
 
 
 
 
Purpose/Objective(s): 
In proton therapy, a radiobiological effectiveness ratio (RBE) of 1.1 (RBE1.1) is often used. In reality, RBE depends on dose, linear energy transfer (LET), biological end point, and tissue type. Using a value of RBE that may be not accurate may affect dose calculation and hence, outcome.
 
 
Materials/Methods: 
We used an in-house built code for modelling malignant induction probability (MIP) from voxel-by-voxel dose map (Timlin 2014) and implement a published model to calculate structure-specific RBE, recalculate dose and MIP, and compare the outcomes with initial calculations using RBE1.1. MIP was calculated using linear quadratic (LQ), linear (LIN), and linear-no-threshold (LNT) models for proton therapy plans for an adult and a teenage patient diagnosed with medulloblastoma (MB). The MIP was then re-calculated using the RBE model by Dale and Jones which is a function of dose (d), α and β and RBEmin and RBEmax:

RBE=(-α+√(α^2+4βd(〖RBE〗_max α+〖RBE〗_(min )^2 βd)))/2βd
 
Results:
Results are shown in Table 1. The difference in MIP by using RBE1.1 and RBEMinMax  is ~2-3%. The effect on mean dose varies between different organs and is between 6% and 8%. Clinical implications due to difference in RBE depend on beam characteristics, dose, structures concerned, and the volume irradiate
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

  Medulloblastoma - Adult
Model RBE1.1 RBEMinMax RBE1.1:RBEMinMax
LQ 0.099 0.097 1.03
LIN 0.078 0.076 1.03
LNT 0.643 0.655 0.98
    (a)  
       
  Medulloblastoma -Teen
Model RBE1.1 RBEMinMax RBE1.1:RBEMinMax
LQ 0.068 0.066 1.02
LIN 0.057 0.056 1.02
LNT 0.554 0.567 0.98
    (b)  
       
  Mean Dose (Gy) - Adult
Name RBE1.1 RBEMinMax RBE1.1:RBEMinMax
Right lung 1.41 1.50 0.94
Left lung 1.36 1.45 0.94
Nasopharynx 4.16 4.48 0.93
Right kidney 0.54 0.58 0.94
Left kidney 1.10 1.16 0.94
Left parotid 4.44 4.75 0.94
Right parotid 2.15 2.30 0.93
Thyroid 0.19 0.20 0.92
Oral cavity 0.04 0.04 0.92

                                                                                                            (c)
 Table 1: Values of whole body MIP using RBE of 1.1 (RBE1.1 )and RBE using the described model (RBEMinMax ) and the relationship between them for the adult (a) and the teenage patient (b). (c) Mean dose for selected structures from the adult patient’s plan using  RBE1.1  and RBEMinMax and the relation between them.
 
Conclusion:
Using RBE1.1 makes proton therapy dose and dose-dependent predictions less accurate. Our results using a RBE calculation model show that decreased accuracy may have clinical implications, which agrees with published literature (Jones 2012;  Jones, 2014), and may affect secondary cancer risk and normal tissue complication probability calculations as well.