Open AccessEvaluation of tomotherapy MVCT image enhancement program for tumor volume delineation
Author(s) -
Martin Spencer,
Rodrigues George,
Chen Quan,
Pavamani Simon,
Read Nancy,
Ahmad Belal,
Hammond J. Alex,
Venkatesan Varagur,
Renaud James,
Yartsev Slav
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
journal of applied clinical medical physics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.83
H-Index - 48
ISSN - 1526-9914
DOI - 10.1120/jacmp.v12i3.3505
Subject(s) - tomotherapy , contouring , nuclear medicine , medicine , coefficient of variation , medical physics , head and neck , radiation therapy , radiology , mathematics , statistics , computer science , surgery , computer graphics (images)
The aims of this study were to investigate the variability between physicians in delineation of head and neck tumors on original tomotherapy megavoltage CT (MVCT) studies and corresponding software enhanced MVCT images, and to establish an optimal approach for evaluation of image improvement. Five physicians contoured the gross tumor volume (GTV) for three head and neck cancer patients on 34 original and enhanced MVCT studies. Variation between original and enhanced MVCT studies was quantified by DICE coefficient and the coefficient of variance. Based on volume of agreement between physicians, higher correlation in terms of average DICE coefficients was observed in GTV delineation for enhanced MVCT for patients 1, 2, and 3 by 15%, 3%, and 7%, respectively, while delineation variance among physicians was reduced using enhanced MVCT for 12 of 17 weekly image studies. Enhanced MVCT provides advantages in reduction of variance among physicians in delineation of the GTV. Agreement on contouring by the same physician on both original and enhanced MVCT was equally high. PACS numbers: 87.57.N‐, 87.57.np, 87.57.nt