Elsevier

Clinical Oncology

Volume 30, Issue 11, November 2018, Pages 711-719
Clinical Oncology

Adaptive Radiotherapy Enabled by MRI Guidance

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.clon.2018.08.001Get rights and content
Under a Creative Commons license
open access

Abstract

Adaptive radiotherapy (ART) strategies systematically monitor variations in target and neighbouring structures to inform treatment-plan modification during radiotherapy. This is necessary because a single plan designed before treatment is insufficient to capture the actual dose delivered to the target and adjacent critical structures during the course of radiotherapy. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) provides superior soft-tissue image contrast over current standard X-ray-based technologies without additional radiation exposure. With integrated MRI and radiotherapy platforms permitting motion monitoring during treatment delivery, it is possible that adaption can be informed by real-time anatomical imaging. This allows greater treatment accuracy in terms of dose delivered to target with smaller, individualised treatment margins. The use of functional MRI sequences would permit ART to be informed by imaging biomarkers, so allowing both personalised geometric and biological adaption. In this review, we discuss ART solutions enabled by MRI guidance and its potential gains for our patients across tumour types.

Key words

Adaptive radiotherapy
gating
image guided
magnetic resonance imaging
radiotherapy planning
tracking

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