Pre- and post-treatment image-based dosimetry in (90)Y-microsphere radioembolization using the TOPAS Monte Carlo toolkit

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the pre-treatment and post-treatment imaging-based dosimetry of patients treated with 90Y-microspheres, including accurate estimations of dose to tumor, healthy liver and lung. To do so, the Monte Carlo (MC) TOPAS platform is in this work extended towards its utilization in radionuclide therapy. APPROACH: Five patients treated at the Massachusetts General Hospital were selected for this study. All patients had data for both pre-treatment SPECT-CT imaging using 99mTc-MAA as a surrogate of the 90Y-microspheres treatment and SPECT-CT imaging immediately after the 90Y activity administration. Pre- and post-treatment doses were computed with TOPAS using the SPECT images to localize the source positions and the CT images to account for tissue inhomoegeneities. We compared our results with analytical calculations following the voxel-based MIRD scheme. MAIN RESULTS: TOPAS results largely agreed with the MIRD-based calculations in soft tissue regions: the average difference in mean dose to the liver was 0.14 Gy/GBq (2.6%). However, dose distributions in the lung differed considerably: absolute differences in mean doses to the lung ranged from 1.2 Gy/GBq to 6.3 Gy/GBq and relative differences from 153% to 231%. We also found large differences in the intra-hepatic dose distributions between pre- and post-treatment imaging, but only limited differences in the pulmonary dose. SIGNIFICANCE: Doses to lung were found to be higher using TOPAS with respect to analytical calculations which may significantly underestimate dose to the lung, suggesting the use of MC methods for 90Y dosimetry. According to our results, pre-treatment imaging may still be representative of dose to lung in these treatments.