The success of the stereotactic radiation therapy approach depends on many clinical, dosimetric and radiobiological factors. They may not have the same impact on the outcome and therefore the key factors must be identified and their influence on the tumour control following stereotactic radiation therapy should be evaluated in order to propose strategies to maximise the therapeutic gain.

Delivering a highly conformal dose distribution to the target in one fraction allowing at the same time the sparing of the normal tissue and the critical structures is part of the basic concept of radiosurgery. Provided that the highly accurate radiosurgical equipment available today is used, planning and delivering the prescribed dose distribution is an achievable goal, and therefore the main issue that remains to be solved is the definition of the target. As the planning target volume in radiosurgery is defined without margins, the success of the stereotactic approach critically depends on the accurate delineation of the target which could be identified as a factor of key importance. Thus, the specific aims of the project are to analyse and quantify a multiobserver variability of target delineation for radiosurgery targets and to evaluate the potential impact of the differences in target delineation with respect to tumour control probability, contribute to the establishment of guidelines for organs at risk (OARs) as well as to develop a robust method for estimating the accurate target based on multiple delineations and to investigate the possibility of accounting for the uncertainty in target delineation through probabilistic and robust treatment planning.

This research project is carried out in close collaboration with Elekta Instruments AB (Stockholm, Sweden), the world-leading company in the production of hardware and software for radiosurgery.

 

For more information contact Iuliana Toma-Dasu