Clinical implementation and evaluation of helical tomotherapy for image-guided adaptive intensity-modulated precision radiotherapy

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Martin Stuschke
• Co-Applicant: Dr. Sabine Levegrün
• Subject Area: Nuclear Medicine, Radiotherapy, Radiobiology
• Term: from 2005 to 2008
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 20660506

Helical tomotherapy is a novel approach for image-guided intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT). The particular advantage of this technique is the combination of highly conformal IMRT delivery and high-quality megavoltage CT (MV-CT) image acquisition in one unit. A program is proposed to clinically implement helical tomotherapy in our Institution. Based on MV-CT, strategies for image-guided adaptive radiotherapy will be developed. These techniques will be applied in clinical situations in which conventional photon IMRT techniques are getting close to their limits, such as re-irradiation of recurrent lung and head and neck tumors, radiotherapy of lung cancers in patients with limited lung function, bone marrow radiotherapy with sparing of visceral organs, dose-escalated radiotherapy for esophageal cancer and high-dose irradiations of multiple brain metastases. The Potential to generate dose distributions superior to those obtained with conventional Irradiation techniques for complex volumes will be explored. Effects of changes in the dose distribution on normal tissues will be investigated in accompanying radiobiological studies and with MRI. Clinical outcome will be correlated with variables derived from the reconstructed dose distribution actually delivered.

• DFG Programme: Major Instrumentation Initiatives
• Major Instrumentation: HI-ART System - Highly Integrated Adaptive Radiotherapy System mit Zubehör
• Instrumentation Group: 3250 Beschleuniger (Medizin)