The results of the challenge showed that the lungs and heart can be segmented fairly accurately by various algorithms, while deep-learning methods performed better on the esophagus. Our dataset together with the manual contours for all training cases continues to be available publicly as an ongoing benchmarking resource.
Purpose
Intensity‐modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) quality assurance (QA) measurements are routinely performed prior to treatment delivery to verify dose calculation and delivery accuracy. In this work, we applied a machine learning‐based approach to predict portal dosimetry based IMRT QA gamma passing rates.
Methods
182 IMRT plans for various treatment sites were planned and delivered with portal dosimetry on two TrueBeam and two Trilogy LINACs. A total of 1497 beams were collected and analyzed using gamma criteria of 2%/2 mm with a 5% threshold. The datasets for building the machine learning models consisted of 1269 beams. Ten‐fold cross‐validation was utilized to tune the model and prevent “overfitting.” A separate test set with the remaining 228 beams was used to evaluate model performance. Each beam was characterized by a set of 31 features including both plan complexity metrics and machine characteristics. Three tree‐based machine learning algorithms (AdaBoost, Random Forest, and XGBoost) were used to train the models and predict gamma passing rates.
Results
Both AdaBoost and Random Forest had 98% of predictions within 3% of the measured 2%/2 mm gamma passing rates with a maximum error less than 4% and a mean absolute error < 1%. XGBoost showed a slightly worse prediction accuracy with 95% of the predictions within 3% of the measured gamma passing rates and a maximum error of 4.5%. The three models identified the same nine features in the top 10 most important ones that are related to plan complexity and maximum aperture displacement from the central axis or the maximum jaw size in a beam.
Conclusion
We have demonstrated that portal dosimetry IMRT QA gamma passing rates can be accurately predicted using tree‐based ensemble learning models. The machine learning based approach allows physicists to better identify the failures of IMRT QA measurements and to develop proactive QA approaches.
Machine learning methods can be used to predict OF for double-scatter proton machines with greater prediction accuracy than the most popular semi-empirical prediction model. By incorporating the gantry angle dependence and field size dependence, the machine learning-based methods can be used for a sanity check of OF measurements and bears the potential to eliminate the time-consuming patient-specific OF measurements.
Clinical implementation of online adaptive radiation therapy requires initial and ongoing performance assessment of the underlying auto-segmentation and adaptive planning algorithms, although a straightforward and efficient process for this in phantom is lacking. The purpose of this work was to investigate robustness and repeatability of the artificial intelligence-assisted online segmentation and adaptive planning process on the Varian Ethos adaptive platform, and to develop an end-to-end test strategy for online adaptive radiation therapy. Five synthetic deformations were generated and applied to a computed tomography image of an anthropomorphic pelvis phantom, and reference treatment plans were generated from each of the resulting deformed images. The undeformed phantom was repeatedly imaged, and the online adaptive process was performed including auto-segmentation, review and manual correction of contours, and adaptive plan creation. One adaptive fractions in five different deformation scenarios were performed. The manually corrected contours had a high degree of consistency (> 93% Dice similarity coefficient and < 1.0 mm mean surface distance) across repeated fractions, with no significant variation across the synthetic deformation instance except for bowel (p = 0.026, one-way ANOVA). Adaptive treatment plans also resulted in highly consistent dose-volume values for targets and organs at risk. A straightforward and efficient process was developed and used to quantify a set of organ specific contouring and dosimetric action levels to help establish uncertainty bounds for an end-to-end test on the Varian Ethos system.
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