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WE‐A‐17A‐03: Catheter Digitization in High‐Dose‐Rate Brachytherapy with the Assistance of An Electromagnetic (EM) Tracking System
Author(s) -
Damato AL,
Bhagwat MS,
Buzurovic I,
Devlin PM,
Friesen S,
Hansen JL,
Kapur T,
Lee LJ,
Mehrtash A,
Nguyen PL,
O' Farrell D,
Wang W,
Viswanathan AN,
Cormack RA
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
medical physics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.473
H-Index - 180
eISSN - 2473-4209
pISSN - 0094-2405
DOI - 10.1118/1.4889373
Subject(s) - imaging phantom , brachytherapy , standard deviation , catheter , nuclear medicine , digitization , observational error , computer science , biomedical engineering , mathematics , medicine , radiology , computer vision , statistics , radiation therapy
Purpose: To investigate the use of a system using EM tracking, postprocessing and error‐detection algorithms for measuring brachytherapy catheter locations and for detecting errors and resolving uncertainties in treatment‐planning catheter digitization. Methods: An EM tracker was used to localize 13 catheters in a clinical surface applicator (A) and 15 catheters inserted into a phantom (B). Two pairs of catheters in (B) crossed paths at a distance <2 mm, producing an undistinguishable catheter artifact in that location. EM data was post‐processed for noise reduction and reformatted to provide the dwell location configuration. CT‐based digitization was automatically extracted from the brachytherapy plan DICOM files (CT). EM dwell digitization error was characterized in terms of the average and maximum distance between corresponding EM and CT dwells per catheter. The error detection rate (detected errors / all errors) was calculated for 3 types of errors: swap of two catheter numbers; incorrect catheter number identification superior to the closest position between two catheters (mix); and catheter‐tip shift. Results: The averages ± 1 standard deviation of the average and maximum registration error per catheter were 1.9±0.7 mm and 3.0±1.1 mm for (A) and 1.6±0.6 mm and 2.7±0.8 mm for (B). The error detection rate was 100% (A and B) for swap errors, mix errors, and shift >4.5 mm (A) and >5.5 mm (B); errors were detected for shifts on average >2.0 mm (A) and >2.4 mm (B). Both mix errors associated with undistinguishable catheter artifacts were detected and at least one of the involved catheters was identified. Conclusion: We demonstrated the use of an EM tracking system for localization of brachytherapy catheters, detection of digitization errors and resolution of undistinguishable catheter artifacts. Automatic digitization may be possible with a registration between the imaging and the EM frame of reference. Research funded by the Kaye Family Award 2012