<title>A Study Of The Potential For Digital Radiographic Data Acquisition For Radiation Therapy Treatment Planning</title>

Abstract

While the quantitative nature of digital fluroscopic and digital radiographic imaging would seem to make possible many radiotherapeutic applications, significant problems must first be solved.The purpose of this study is to examine the potential benefits of digital imaging in radiation therapy, identify what problems must be solved to attain these benefits, and attempt to make some assessment as to the relative merits of developing such technologies.Among the potential benefits are ability to do contrast -subtraction studies for tumor and /or normal structure localization and portal placement, digital simulation of portal placement and treatment delivery, spatial localization and digitization of inhomogeneity boundaries, spatial localization and digitization of brachytherapy sources, and quantitative inhomogeneity acquisition for dosimetry calculations. Significant problems which must be solved include image receptor size limitations, image acquisition geometry related spatial distortion, three dimensional region calculation from limited views, and physical interpretation of digital image grey levels.