Dosimetric comparison between helical tomotherapy and volumetric modulated arc-therapy for non-anaplastic thyroid cancer treatment

BACKGROUND: To evaluate and compare dosimetric parameters of volumetric modulated arctherapy (VMAT) and helical tomotherapy (HT) for non-anaplastic thyroid cancer adjuvant radiotherapy. METHODS: Twelve patients with non-anaplastic thyroid cancer at high risk of local relapse received adjuvant external beam radiotherapy with curative intent in our institution, using a two-dose level prescription with a simultaneous integrated boost approach. Each patient was re-planned by the same physicist twice using both VMAT and HT. Several dosimetric quality indexes were used: target coverage index (proportion of the target volume covered by the reference isodose), healthy tissue conformity index (proportion of the reference isodose volume including the target volume), conformation number (combining both previous indexes), Dice Similarity Coefficient (DSC), and homogeneity index ((D2%-D98%)/prescribed dose). Dose-volume histogram statistics were also compared. RESULTS: HT provided statistically better target coverage index and homogeneity index for low risk PTV in comparison with VMAT (respectively 0.99 vs. 0.97 (p = 0.008) and 0.22 vs. 0.25 (p = 0.016)). However, HT provided poorer results for healthy tissue conformity index, conformation number and DSC with low risk and high risk PTV. As regards organs at risk sparing, by comparison with VMAT, HT statistically decreased the D2% to medullary canal (25.3 Gy vs. 32.6 Gy (p = 0.003)). Besides, HT allowed a slight sparing dose for the controlateral parotid (Dmean: 4.3 Gy vs. 6.6 Gy (p = 0.032)) and for the controlateral sub-maxillary gland (Dmean: 29.1 Gy vs. 33.1 Gy (p = 0.041)). CONCLUSIONS: Both VMAT and HT techniques for adjuvant treatment of non-anaplastic thyroid cancer provide globally attractive treatment plans with slight dosimetric differences. However, helical tomotherapy clearly provides a benefit in term of medullary canal sparing.