Clinically Oriented Target Contour Evaluation Using Geometric and Dosimetric Indices Based on Simple Geometric Transformations

PURPOSE: In radiotherapy, geometric indices are often used to evaluate the accuracy of contouring. However, the ability of geometric indices to identify the error of contouring results is limited primarily because they do not consider the clinical background. The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between geometric and clinical dosimetric indices. METHODS: Four different types of targets were selected (C-shaped target, oropharyngeal cancer, metastatic spine cancer, and prostate cancer), and the translation, scaling, rotation, and sine function transformation were performed with the software Python to introduce systematic and random errors. The transformed contours were regarded as reference contours. Dosimetric indices were obtained from the original dose distribution of the radiotherapy plan. The correlations between geometric and dosimetric indices were quantified by linear regression. RESULTS: The correlations between the geometric and dosimetric indices were inconsistent. For systematic errors, and with the exception of the sine function transformation (R(2): 0.023-0.04, P > 0.05), the geometric transformations of the C-shaped target were correlated with the D98% and D(mean) (R(2): 0.689-0.988), 80% of which were P < 0.001. For the random errors, the correlations obtained by the all targets were R(2) > 0.384, P < 0.05. The Wilcoxon signed-rank test was used to compare the spatial direction resolution capability of geometric indices in different directions of the C-shaped target (with systematic errors), and the results showed only the volumetric geometric indices with P < 0.05. CONCLUSIONS: Clinically, an assessment of the contour accuracy of the region-of-interest is not feasible based on geometric indices alone. Dosimetric indices should be added to the evaluations of the accuracy of the delineation results, which can be helpful for explaining the clinical dose response relationship of delineation more comprehensively and accurately.