Dosimetrical and radiobiological approach to manage the dosimetric shift in the transition of dose calculation algorithm in radiation oncology: how to improve high quality treatment and avoid unexpected outcomes?

BACKGROUND: For a given prescribed dose of radiotherapy, with the successive generations of dose calculation algorithms, more monitor units (MUs) are generally needed. This is due to the implementation of successive improvements in dose calculation: better heterogeneity correction and more accurate estimation of secondary electron transport contribution. More recently, there is the possibility to report the dose-to-medium, physically more accurate compared to the dose-to-water as the reference one. This last point is a recent concern and the main focus of this study. METHODS: In this paper, we propose steps for a general analysis procedure to estimate the dosimetric alterations, and the potential clinical changes, between a reference algorithm and a new one. This includes dosimetric parameters, gamma index, radiobiology indices based on equivalent uniform dose concept and statistics with bootstrap simulation. Finally, we provide a general recommendation on the clinical use of new algorithms regarding the dose prescription or dose limits to the organs at risks. RESULTS: The dosimetrical and radiobiological data showed a significant effect, which might exceed 5–10%, of the calculation method on the dose the distribution and clinical outcomes for lung cancer patients. Wilcoxon signed rank paired comparisons indicated that the delivered dose in MUs was significantly increased (> 2%) using more advanced dose calculation methods as compared to the reference one. CONCLUSION: This paper illustrates and explains the use of dosimetrical, radiobiologcal and statistical tests for dosimetric comparisons in radiotherapy. The change of dose calculation algorithm may induce a dosimetric shift, which has to be evaluated by the physicists and the oncologists. This includes the impact on tumor control and on the risk of toxicity based on normal tissue dose constraints. In fact, the alteration in dose distribution makes it hard to keep exactly the same tumor control probability along with the same normal tissue complication probability.