Fully automated treatment planning of spinal metastases – A comparison to manual planning of Volumetric Modulated Arc Therapy for conventionally fractionated irradiation

BACKGROUND: Planning for Volumetric Modulated Arc Therapy (VMAT) may be time consuming and its use is limited by available staff resources. Automated multicriterial treatment planning can eliminate this bottleneck. We compared automatically created (auto) VMAT plans generated by Erasmus-iCycle to manually created VMAT plans for treatment of spinal metastases. METHODS: Forty-two targets in 32 patients were analyzed. Lungs and kidneys were defined as organs at risk (OARs). Twenty-two patients received radiotherapy on kidney levels, 17 on lung levels, and 3 on both levels. RESULTS: All Erasmus-iCycle plans were clinically acceptable. When compared to manual plans, planning target volume (PTV) coverage of auto plans was significantly better. The Homogeneity Index did not differ significantly between the groups. Mean dose to OARs was lower in auto plans concerning both kidneys and the left lung. One hotspot (>110% of D(50%)) occurred in the spinal cord of one auto plan (33.2 Gy, D(50%): 30 Gy). Treatment time was 7% longer in auto plans. CONCLUSIONS: Erasmus-iCycle plans showed better target coverage and sparing of OARs at the expense of minimally longer treatment times (for which no constraint was set). ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s13014-017-0767-2) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.