Influence of respiratory motion on target dose distribution in radiotherapy for lung tumors

Objective To investigate the influence of respiratory motion on target dose distribution in radiotherapy for patients with lung tumors. Methods The Big Bore Brilliance CT with bellows system was used to gain the 4DCT sets and respiratory frequency information of the patients. The moving ranges of the tumors in left-right (LR), anterior-posterior (AP) and cranial-caudal (CC) directions were measured from the center coordinate values of gross tumor volume of ten time-phase CT sets in the treatment planning sys-tem. Then a breathing model was used to simulate the tumor motions due to respiration. A 4-dimensional motion table was used to mimic the motion of lung tumor in beams-eye-view (BEV). A 2-dimensional semi-conductor beams measurement system was fixed to the table to measure the 2-dimensional dose distribution of static and dynamic targets using the treatment beams at gantry angle of 0°. Finally, the differences of the dose distribution between the static and moving phantom were compared and analyzed with the statistical soft-ware R. Results When the amplitude (half of the moving rang) in the CC direction was 1 cm, the passing ratio of relative dose difference ≤4% in one beam field was minimal (1.1%), and there was 58% maximal relative dose absence. The 4% passing ratios media in the CC direction were 94.7%, 79.4%, 58.6% and 37.1% in =29.20,P=0.000), but were all similar in the AP and LR directions. The mean value of the relative dose change in the high dose area was smaller than the low dose area in the 89% beam fields. When only the CC direction was consid-ered, the 4% passing ratio of 3.6 s and 8.2 s period was 72% and 60%, respectively. Conclusions The amplitude in the CC direction is a factor impacting the dose distribution of the moving target. The influence of respiratory motion on high dose area is more than that on low dose area. When the other respiratory param-eters are fixed, the motion of long period has more influence on the dose than that of short period. Special at-tention should be paid to the patients with tumor of more than 0.5 cm amplitude in the CC direction when planning the intensity modulated radiotherapy. Key words: Tomography, X-ray computed, four dimensional;  Respiratory motion;  Two-dimen-sional semiconductor dosimeter array;  Dose distribution