Complications risk related to external radiotherapy : comparative study of doses delivered to healthy tissues by cutting-edge radiotherapy techniques

Thesis: Advanced radiotherapy techniques enable highly conformal dose distribution to the tumor. This higher precision is made at the cost of an increased tissue volume receiving low doses. The exposed organs are then susceptible to develop radio-induced lesions. Nowadays, risks of complications represent an important societal challenge as survival rates are increasing due to treatment efficacy and therefore the risk for a subsequent effect also increases. However, risk assessment requires a precise knowledge of the doses delivered to healthy organs, directly correlated to the risk of complications. Those doses are still unknown as calculated incorrectly by the treatment planning systems (TPS). Within this context, this thesis aims at precisely determining the doses delivered to normal tissues by advanced radiotherapy techniques. On the one hand, a comparative study of the doses delivered by different modern techniques was performed and on the other hand, the performance of the TPS dose computation algorithms was evaluated in terms of healthy tissue doses. Thus, numerical and experimental tools have been developed in this work. First, a PENELOPE Monte-Carlo model of a CyberKnife system has been extended and validated in 1-D and 2-D to determine out-of-field doses. This model was then used to evaluate the doses delivered to healthy tissue by a pulmonary treatment. This study provides requisite dosimetric data to evaluate the risks associated to the treatment and finally, it highlights the important precision of detailed Monte-Carlo simulation in comparison with the TPS. Moreover, an experimental 3-D reconstruction tool was developed thanks to radiochromic film measurements. A protocol of gel dosimetry was also established. After 2-D and 3-D validation, the 3-D tool was applied to compare the doses delivered by three radiotherapy techniques (conformational, VMAT and tomotherapy) in a pediatric renal treatment. While advanced techniques deliver highly conformal dose distribution, the doses to organs located at distance of the target are considerably increased up to a factor 3 in comparison with conformal radiotherapy. The tomotherapy spares the healthy tissues compared to VMAT due to its additional shielding. Finally, unlike Eclipse™, the TPS Tomotherapy enables a precise dose evaluation up to 30 cm from the field edge.

Author(s)

Julie Colnot

Date of publication
  • 2019
Keywords
  • Advanced radiotherapy
  • 3-D dosimetry
  • Monte-Carlo simulations
  • Normal tissue doses
Issuing body(s)
  • Université Paris Saclay (COmUE)
Date of defense
  • 11/10/2019
Thesis director(s)
  • Christelle Huet
  • Régine Gschwind
Version
  • 1