Combining deep-inspiration breath hold and intensity-modulated radiotherapy for gastric mucosa-associated lymphoid tissue lymphoma: Dosimetric evaluation using comprehensive plan quality indices

BACKGROUND: Although there have been many attempts to increase the therapeutic ratio of radiotherapy for gastric mucosa-associated lymphoid tissue lymphoma (MALToma), only a few planning studies have reported the efficacy of the modern radiotherapy technique till date. Therefore, we performed the dosimetric comparison among 3-dimensional conformal radiotherapy (3D-CRT) and intensity-modulated radiotherapy (IMRT) plans, using deep-inspiration breath hold (DIBH) or free-breathing (FB) techniques, to determine the most optimal plan for gastric MALToma. METHODS: We evaluated 9 patients with gastric MALToma for whom 3D-CRT, step-and-shoot IMRT ((S)IMRT), volumetric-modulated arc therapy (VMAT), and tomotherapy plans with identical prescribed doses were generated using DIBH or FB computed tomography (CT). Planning target volume (PTV) coverage and non-target doses were calculated for each plan and compared with plan quality metric (PQM) scores. RESULTS: All 72 plans of 9 patients satisfied our dosimetric goals, and the IMRT plans and 3D-CRT plans had similarly good conformity index values with no differences related to respiratory movement. IMRT plans yielded significantly better doses to the organs-at-risk, and DIBH plans yielded significantly lower liver, heart, and lung D(mean) and spinal cord D(max) with smaller irradiated volumes compared to FB plans. For the mean PQM scores, VMAT-DIBH and (S)IMRT-DIBH yielded the best scores, whereas 3D plans provided reduced beam monitor unit values. CONCLUSION: Our findings demonstrate that modern RT technologies (DIBH with VMAT or (S)IMRT) could potentially provide excellent target coverage for gastric MALToma while reducing doses to organs-at-risk. However, the relevance of the most optimal plan considering clinical outcomes should be confirmed further in a larger patient cohort. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s13014-019-1263-7) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.