Comparison of commercial dosimetric software platforms in patients treated with (177)Lu‐DOTATATE for peptide receptor radionuclide therapy

PURPOSE: The aim of this study was to quantitatively compare five commercial dosimetric software platforms based on the analysis of clinical datasets of patients who benefited from peptide receptor radionuclide therapy (PRRT) with (177)Lu‐DOTATATE (LUTATHERA(®)). METHODS: The dosimetric analysis was performed on two patients during two cycles of PRRT with (177)Lu. Single photon emission computed tomography/computed tomography images were acquired at 4, 24, 72, and 192 h post injection. Reconstructed images were generated using Dosimetry Toolkit(®) (DTK) from Xeleris™ and HybridRecon‐Oncology version_1.3_Dicom (HROD) from HERMES. Reconstructed images using DTK were analyzed using the same software to calculate time‐integrated activity coefficients (TIAC), and mean absorbed doses were estimated using OLINDA/EXM V1.0 with mass correction. Reconstructed images from HROD were uploaded into PLANET® OncoDose from DOSIsoft, STRATOS from Phillips, Hybrid Dosimetry Module™ from HERMES, and SurePlan™ MRT from MIM. Organ masses, TIACs, and mean absorbed doses were calculated from each application using their recommendations. RESULTS: The majority of organ mass estimates varied by <9.5% between all platforms. The highest variability for TIAC results between platforms was seen for the kidneys (28.2%) for the two patients and the two treatment cycles. Relative standard deviations in mean absorbed doses were slightly higher compared with those observed for TIAC, but remained of the same order of magnitude between all platforms. CONCLUSIONS: When applying a similar processing approach, results obtained were of the same order of magnitude regardless of the platforms used. However, the comparison of the performances of currently available platforms is still difficult as they do not all address the same parts of the dosimetric analysis workflow. In addition, the way in which data are handled in each part of the chain from data acquisition to absorbed doses may be different, which complicates the comparison exercise. Therefore, the dissemination of commercial solutions for absorbed dose calculation calls for the development of tools and standards allowing for the comparison of the performances between dosimetric software platforms.