The dosimetric impact of titanium implants in spinal SBRT using four commercial treatment planning algorithms

To evaluate the dosimetric impact of titanium implants in spine SBRT using four dose calculation algorithms. Twenty patients with titanium implants in the spine treated with SBRT without density override (DO) were selected. The clinical plan for each patient was created in Pinnacle and subsequently imported into Eclipse (AAA and AcurosXB) and Raystation (CC) for dose evaluation with and without DO to the titanium implant. We renormalized all plans such that 90% of the tumor volume received the prescription dose and subsequently evaluated the following dose metrics: (1) the maximum dose to 0.03 cc (Dmax), dose to 99% (D99%) and 90% (D90%) of the tumor volume; (2) Dmax and volumetric metrics of the spinal cord. For the same algorithm, plans with and without DO had similar dose distributions. Differences in Dmax, D99% and D90% of the tumor were on average <2% with slightly larger variations up to 5.58% in Dmax using AcurosXB. Dmax of the spinal cord for plans calculated with DO increased but the differences were clinically insignificant for all algorithms (mean: 0.36% ± 0.7%). Comparing to the clinical plans, the relative differences for all algorithms had an average of 1.73% (−10.36%–13.21%) for the tumor metrics and −0.93% (−9.87%–10.95%) for Dmax of the spinal cord. A few cases with small tumor and spinal cord volumes, dose differences of >10% in both D99% and Dmax of the tumor, and Dmax of the spinal cord were observed. For all algorithms, the presence of titanium implants in the spine for most patients had minimal impact on dose distributions with and without DO. For the same plan calculated with different algorithms, larger differences in volumetric metrics of >10% could be observed, impacted by dose gradient at the plan normalization volume, tumor volumes, plan complexity, and partial voxel volume interpolation.