Development of twist‐correction system for radiotherapy of head and neck cancer patients

To propose a concept for correcting the twist between the head and neck and the body frequently occurring in radiotherapy patients and to develop a prototype device for achieving this. Furthermore, the operational accuracy of this device under no load was evaluated. We devised a concept for correcting the twist of patients by adjustment of the three rotation (pitch, roll, and yaw) angles in two independent plates connected by a joint (fulcrum). The two plates (head and neck plate and body plate) rotate around the fulcrum by adjusting screws under each of them. A prototype device was created to materialize this concept. First, after all adjusting screws were set to the zero position, the rotation angle of each plate was measured by a digital goniometer. Repeatability was evaluated by performing 20 repeated measurements. Next, to confirm the rotational accuracy of each plate of the prototype device, the calculated rotation angles for 20 combinations of patterns of traveled distances of the adjusting screws were compared with those measured by the digital goniometer and cone‐beam computed tomography (CT). The repeatability (standard deviation: SD) of the pitch, roll, and yaw angles of the head and neck plate was 0.04°, 0.05°, and 0.03°, and the repeatability (SD) of the body plate was 0.05°, 0.04°, and 0.04°, respectively. The mean differences ± SD between the calculated and measured pitch, roll, and yaw angles for the head and neck plate with the digital goniometer were 0.00 ± 0.06°, −0.01 ± 0.06°, and −0.04 ± 0.04°, respectively. The differences for the body plate were −0.03 ± 0.04°, 0.03 ± 0.05°, and 0.02 ± 0.05°, respectively. Results of the cone‐beam CT were similar to those of the digital goniometer. The prototype device exhibited good performance regarding the rotational accuracy and repeatability under no load. The clinical implementation of this concept is expected to reduce the residual error of the patient position due to the twist.